The efficacy of gender-based federal procurement policies in the United States

Small Business Economics - Because procurement policies are one means of redressing discrimination and economic exclusion, the United States government has targeted 23% of its annual half-trillion...     

Exploring Prenatal Physical Activity at the “Postgenomic Turn”: A Transdisciplinary Journey

Abstract

Within the life sciences, there has been a move away from genetic determinism toward an awareness of how the environment (from cellular to social) can impact gene expression and health outcomes. Significantly, exercise scientists are looking to this “postgenomic turn” to explore how prenatal physical activity and leisure might affect the fetal metabolic environment by altering offspring gene expression and preventing future obesity. In this article, we draw upon insights from feminist new materialist scholars to explore how and if the entanglement of the social and material promised by the postgenomic turn is realized in prenatal exercise interventions. After outlining how this is not the case, we reflect upon our attempt to promote a transdisciplinary dialogue that facilitates a social justice ethos and nonreductionist version of maternal-fetal health and physical culture. Our transdisciplinary journey contributes to the feminist physical cultural studies agenda of equity development in the realm of exercise and leisure.     

Informalization of the State: Reflections from an Urban World of Translations

The project of globalizing informality requires the circulation of concepts and theories from the ‘South’ to the ‘North’. It also relies on intertextuality and exchanges across languages and sites of academic production. This essay is a reaction to the collection of papers presented in this forum. It argues for more academic conversations between languages and cities in order to contribute to a general state theory.     

Financial Capability for All: Training Human Service Professionals to Work with Vulnerable Families

This essay explores the potential for social workers and other human services professionals to build the financial capability of vulnerable populations. These professionals routinely work with the financially vulnerable and are uniquely positioned to provide basic financial guidance and support. Their education in human development, family dynamics, organizational and community functioning, and social policy prepares them to be key partners in creating solutions to financial vulnerability. However, human service professionals need additional training. Although there has been significant progress in developing curricula, additional resources, such as assessment models and practice tools for serving specific populations, would facilitate financial practice. Academic degree programs and continuing education in financial capability must be developed, along with greater clarification about career pathways and credentialing. Building the financial capability of vulnerable families is an ambitious agenda, but one that is essential to well‐being in the 21st century.     

Assessing the Welfare Impact of Tax Reform: A Case Study of the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut

This note acknowledges a programming error in our paper, “Assessing the Welfare Impact of Tax Reform: A Case Study of the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut” (Review of Income and Wealth, 58(2), 233–56, 2012). Correcting the error primarily has the effect of scaling the calculated family welfare impact of 2001 U.S. Tax Cut. The primary conclusions from the analysis, however, are unaffected.     

THE FUTURE OF STATE INSURANCE REGULATION: CAN IT SURVIVE?

Abstract: As Congress continues to debate the future of financial services affiliations, state insurance regulators are faced with blurred lines of regulatory authority and the opportunity of federal banking regulators to preempt their decisions and their enforcement of consumer protection statutes. This article attempts to remind readers of the history and significance of state insurance regulation and provide clear evidence of its continued importance in the future of the conglomerated financial services marketplace.     

Commissioning and GPs: to commit[tee] or not?

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), part of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) since April 2013, are complex organizations requiring buy-in by GPs for strategic success. CCG budgetary deficits and lack of sustained engagement by GPs are a problem. This paper utilizes evidence of GP experience in commissioning models to determine the factors that may influence engagement in the governance of CCGs by GPs, which is crucial if clinically-led commissioning is to be part of a financially sustainable NHS.     

How information systems influence user decisions: a research framework and literature review

Technology has created new information alternatives that may influence the way information system users make decisions. This paper proposes a research framework for examining how features of an information system affect the decision-making process. The framework is synthesized by merging frameworks from the accounting information systems (AIS) literature and the human information processing (HIP) literature. The framework is then used to organize a literature review of 15 journals from 1987 through mid-1999, which identified 57 decision-making studies. Findings indicate that a wide range of opportunities is available for information systems research on issues of contemporary importance. This discussion includes changes in the decision process initiated by implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, data warehouses, electronic commerce, virtual organizations, on-line financial reporting, and disaggregated financial statement information.     

A method for building community resilience to climate change in emerging coastal cities

Rapidly urbanising coastal locations represent prototypes of future cities. While these “sea change” locations will face a range of issues associated with rapid growth such as infrastructure provision and enhancement of social capital, anticipated environmental impacts are likely to add significant challenges. Climate change is likely to have dramatic impacts on sea change communities through diminished potable water supplies, rising sea levels, storm surges, and increased intensity of flood events - with indirect impacts on health, financial sectors, and biodiversity. Given the inherent diversity within sea change communities with regard to age, culture, and socio-economic status there are likely to be differences in ways of adapting, the ability to adapt, and the desired direction of any changes. Cognizant of the potential enormity of climate change impacts, the need for rapid responses, and the diversity within communities, this paper proposes a participatory and transformative method to work with communities in responding to climate change and variability within rapidly urbanising coastal locations. The method focuses on determining probable futures for various communities of place and interest within sea change areas and aims to build the capacity for dynamic on-going learning to achieve those futures, both within and between the communities. Through this process community members may be empowered with dynamic and future-orientated learning skills that build upon community knowledge, innovation, and resilience.