Leading,following and sexism in social dance: change of meaning as contained secondary adjustments

By assigning men the role of ‘lead’ and women the role of ‘follow’, social dance can be viewed as a form of serious leisure that appears to perpetuate a system that positions women as subordinate to men. Interviews with 29 women and 10 men who self-identified as social dancers revealed that women used several strategies to create meanings for following that allowed them to achieve parity with men while operating in an explicitly sexist idioculture. Women’s interpretation of following and the relationship between leading and following was as learning a complex set of skills and abilities that allowed them to make an important contribution to the dance. The meanings women applied to following can be understood as contained secondary adjustments. By viewing following as a performance that requires considerable skill, women can expose the idea that the role of follow is subordinate to the lead as a social construction, and, in the process, use being a follow to subvert the expected social organisation.     

Uneasy Alliances: Lessons Learned from Partnerships Between Businesses and NGOs in the context of CSR

Interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has proliferated in academic and business circles alike. In the context of CSR, the spotlight has traditionally focused on the role of the private sector particularly in view of its wealth and global reach. Other actors have recently begun to assume more visible roles in the context of CSR, including Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have acquired increasing prominence on the socio-economic landscape. This article examines five partnerships between businesses and NGOs in a developing country context that fall in the realm of CSR. The article starts with a literature review, delineating foundational underpinnings that have to be carefully designed and crafted to promote the success of collaborative ventures. An empirical study of five selected partnerships between businesses and NGOs in Lebanon is then presented, allowing to derive interesting insights into types of existing alliances, their relational characteristics as well as salient factors considered most determinant of success or failure in this regard.     

Express yourself: Facial expression of happiness,anger, fear,and sadness in funding pitches

We build upon theory from evolutionary psychology and emotional expression, including basic emotion theory and the dual threshold model of anger in organizations, to extend knowledge about the influence of facial expressions of emotion in entrepreneurial fundraising. First, we conduct a qualitative analysis to understand the objects of entrepreneurs' facial expressions of four basic emotions in their pitches: happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. This provides a base for our theorizing that the frequency of entrepreneurs' facial expression of each of these emotions exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with funding. We also argue that the frequency of changes in entrepreneurs' facial expressions is positively related to funding. We test our predictions with a sample of 489 funding pitches using computer-aided facial expression analysis. Results support inverted U-shaped relationships of the frequency of facial expression of happiness, anger, and fear with funding, but show a negative relationship of sadness with funding. Results further support that the frequency of change in entrepreneurs' facial expressions promotes funding.     

Measuring income tax accrual quality

We develop and validate a measure of tax accrual quality. Tax accrual quality captures variation in the extent to which the income tax accrual maps into income tax-related cash flows, with lower variation indicating a higher quality tax accrual. Low tax accrual quality arises from (1) management estimation error and (2) financial reporting standards that lead to differences between income tax expense and income tax cash flows not captured by deferred tax assets and liabilities. We validate our tax accrual quality measure by showing it is associated with firm characteristics that capture both constructs and by demonstrating it predicts future tax-related restatements and internal control material weaknesses. We illustrate the importance of our measure by showing that investors view tax expense as more informative in firms with better tax accrual quality. Future researchers can use tax accrual quality to address questions related to estimation error in the income tax account.     

Comparison of hospital length of stay and hospitalization costs among patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation treated with apixaban or warfarin: An early view

Objective: To quantify and compare hospital length of stay (LOS) and costs between hospitalized non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients treated with either apixaban or warfarin via a large claims database.

Methods: Adult patients hospitalized with AF were selected from the Premier Perspective Claims Database (01JAN2013-31MARCH2014). Patients with evidence of valvular heart disease, valve replacement procedures, or pregnancy during the index hospitalization were excluded. Patients treated with apixaban or warfarin during hospitalization were identified. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to control for baseline imbalances between patients treated with apixaban or warfarin. Primary outcomes were hospital LOS (days), post-medication administration LOS, and index hospitalization costs, and were compared using paired t-tests in the matched sample.

Results: Before PSM, 2894 apixaban and 124,174 warfarin patients were identified. Patients treated with warfarin were older and sicker compared to those treated with apixaban. After applying PSM, a total of 2886 patients were included in each cohort, and baseline characteristics were balanced. The mean (standard deviation [SD] and median) hospital LOS was significantly (p?=?0.002) shorter for patients treated with apixaban for 5.1 days (5.7 and 3) compared to warfarin for 5.5 days (4.8 and 4). The trend appeared consistent in the hospital LOS from point of apixaban or warfarin administration to discharge (4.5 vs 4.7 days, p?=?0.051). Patients administered apixaban incurred significantly lower hospitalization costs compared to those administered warfarin ($11,262 vs $12,883; p?<?0.001).

Conclusions: Among NVAF patients, apixaban treatment was associated with significantly shorter hospital LOS and lower costs when compared to warfarin treatment.     

Evaluating a County-Sponsored Social Marketing Campaign to Increase Mothers' Initiation of HPV Vaccine for their Pre-teen Daughters in a Primarily Rural Area

Routine vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV), the main cause of cervical cancer, is recommended for 11-12 year old girls, yet vaccine uptake is low. This study evaluates a social marketing campaign initiated by 13 North Carolina counties to raise awareness among parents and reduce barriers to accessing the vaccine in a primarily rural area. The 3-month campaign targeted mothers of girls ages 11-12 and healthcare practices serving pre-teen girls in four counties. Principles of social marketing were: product (recommended vaccine against HPV), price (cost, perception of safety and efficacy, and access), promotion (posters, brochures, website, news releases, doctor's recommendation), and place (doctors' offices, retail outlets). We analyzed (1) website traffic, hotline calls, and media placement; (2) cross-sectional surveys of mothers and providers; and (3) HPV immunization rates in intervention versus non-intervention counties. Of respondent mothers (n=225), 82% heard or saw campaign messages or materials. Of respondent providers (n=35), 94% used campaign brochures regularly or occasionally in conversations with parents. HPV vaccination rates within six months of campaign launch were 2% higher for 9-13 year old girls in two of the four intervention counties compared to 96 non-intervention counties. This evaluation supports campaign use in other primarily rural and underserved areas.     

Breaking boundaries and barriers: Future directions in cross‐cultural research

Abstract

The level and degree of understanding of the nature and meaning of leisure in the lives of blacks, native‐Americans, Hispanics, and other ethnic minority populations within the United States is lacking. Most research to date has utilized a social aggregate approach to the study of ethnic/racial differentiation; such research overlooks the dynamics and complexity of ethnicity within poly‐ethnic, pluralistic societies. The objectives of this article are: 1) to present an overview of the types of research which have been conducted among ethnic/racial populations within the U.S., 2) to discuss several ideological and theoretical assumptions which underlie such approaches, and 3) to present several alternative theoretical and methodological approaches which might prove more meaningful in attempts to understand the dynamics of cultural diversity.