Think Globally,Teach Locally: Experiencing the Foreign Aid Debate Through Service Learning

Abstract

Novel curricular strategies are required if institutions want all students to actively experience the benefits of global knowledge and civic engagement, as financial and practical commitments frequently make study abroad inaccessible to many students. In this paper, we outline an innovative service-learning course, where local action coupled with an international target, offered a parallel and novel learning strategy that capitalized on the strengths of experiential education, while providing a practical and more inclusive student engagement opportunity available to a larger subset of students. We also describe our teaching strategy, which emphasizes the social context of the classroom: discovery, self-exploration, and shared learning. Together, service learning and a critical pedagogy can better help students relate to the otherwise abstract processes of foreign aid. In 2013 and 2014, approximately 30 undergraduate students participated in a student-led outreach project soliciting bicycle donations to support human development efforts in Uganda and Ghana. In addition to making reasonable progress toward learning outcomes during the two-year pilot, we found that the everyday challenges our students encountered in their service-learning project were microcosms for some of the large-scale, global challenges that foreign aid delivery faces.     

The determinants of inter-organizational and internal in-house adoption of XBRL: A structural equation model

Prior research has investigated organizational adoption of inter-organizational Information Technology (IT) using the Technological–Organizational–Environmental (TOE) framework. While that research has yielded important insights into the adoption of inter-organizational IT, new technologies, such as XBRL, can be used inter-organizationally or internally. As such, testing the TOE framework in both an internal and inter-organizational context is vital because the independent variables explaining internal adoption may be different from those explaining inter-organizational adoption. Using XBRL as a representative example, the TOE framework is used in this study to investigate XBRL adoption for both internal and inter-organizational purposes. The results suggest that the drivers of internal adoption differ from those of inter-organizational adoption. Based on these results, we encourage future research to consider whether the significance of technological, organizational, and environmental variables change based on whether a technology is adopted internally or inter-organizationally. From a practical perspective, the findings can help professional associations encourage adoption of XBRL.     

In Sickness and in Health: Implications for Employers when Bipolar Disorders are Protected Disabilities

This paper explores the potential conflict between employment protections afforded to individuals with bipolar disorder, and employers’ obligations to maintain a safe working environment for others in the workplace. Both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAA) provide workplace protections to those employees or applicants who are classified as qualified individuals with a disability. A disability is “a substantial impairment—a physical or mental impairment—in a major life activity that would substantially limit that major life activity.” ( 42 U.S.C. §§ 12102(1)(A)-(C)), and “mental impairment” is defined to include individuals with bipolar disorder (42 U.S.C. § 1630.2(h)(2)). These statutes further impose a requirement on employers to make reasonable accommodations for such individuals. In essence, they protect the bipolar employee from any discrimination in the workplace based on their disability, to include harassment by coworkers. However, employers may find themselves caught on the horns of a dilemma. Depending on the nature and severity of the bipolar employee’s conduct toward coworkers, they may also be exposed to liability for harm done to coworkers under negligent retention laws, or even the anti-harassment provisions of other equal employment statutes. If a bipolar employee’s negative behaviors toward coworkers are sufficiently severe or pervasive, they can result in coworkers suffering harassment sufficient to constitute actionable conduct under the ADA. To reduce exposure to litigation, employers must understand both their obligations under the ADA, and the nature of bipolar disorder.     

American hegemony after 11 September: allies,rivals and contradictions

11 September heralded and provided a pretext for a more aggressive but increasingly contradictory American hegemony. Some of the consequences are contrary to the United States' own interests. Its new doctrine of ‘preemptive strike’ against other sovereign states encourages similarly belligerent behaviour by other governments, and yet more terrorism by nonstate actors, the very threats which were to be eradicated by a re-asserted US hegemony. This essay focuses on three partly overlapping themes: different strategies towards allies – multilateral and unilateral; different forms of power – civil and military; and different ideologies of globalisation – neoliberal and neo-conservative. It argues that while US policy may oscillate between such poles, it often combines the different elements. The overall strategy of the Bush administration is best characterised as unilateral multilateralism. The main issue for US hegemonists is the ways in which their hegemony might best be exercised, maintained and strengthened vis à vis allies and rivals. But for a safer, more democratic world, the choice does not lie between one faction of US hegemonists and another: we need other alternatives such as cosmopolitan democracy and a genuine internationalist movement which would give it some much-needed substance.     

Continuing Progress? Trends in Occupational Segregation in the United States over the 1970s and 1980s

This study uses comparable data on 470 detailed occupations from the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Censuses to analyze trends in occupational segregation in the United States in the 1980s and compare them in detail to the 1970s experience of declining segregation. We find that the trend towards reduced segregation did indeed continue into the 1980s at only a slightly slower pace. In both decades, changes in sex composition within occupations accounted for the major share of the decline in segregation (compared to changes in the mix of occupations in the economy). We also find that the pattern of changes in the sex composition of occupations and in the employment distribution of workers that produced the observed reductions in segregation were remarkably similar in each of these two periods. This similarity potentially poses some problems for the future. As women continue to enter the same areas, resegregation, which we found to have relatively moderate effects in the 1970s and 1980s, becomes an increasing possibility. Continued progress towards reducing occupational segregation requires that women succeed in entering a broader range of traditionally male occupations and/or a greater flow of men into traditionally female occupations.     

Green segmentation and environmental certification: insights from forest products

Firms engage in environmental marketing in order to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. Within the context of the forest product industry, this research uses data from two studies to empirically test whether a relationship exists between demographic/psychographic characteristics and reported environmentally conscious intentions. In both studies, the results indicate that the environmental marketing of certified/ecolabeled forest products appeals to a segment of environmentally conscious consumers. This appeal occurs for both a value‐added product (furniture) and a non‐value‐added product (plywood). Thus, there is support for the argument that environmental marketing to environmentally conscious consumers can result in ‘green segmentation’. Key findings from this study suggest that those consumers reporting the strongest preferences for environmentally certified forest products were more willing to pay a premium for certified products, more likely to display environmentally conscious behavior and more likely to perceive that green consumer purchases effectively benefit the environment. These characteristics were most common among females and those familiar with the concept of environmental certification. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and EPR Environment.     

Household decision-making for everyday travel: a case study of walking and cycling in Lancaster (UK)

Increased walking and cycling for short journeys in urban areas has many obvious advantages yet so far gains from the promotion of more sustainable travel of this type are mostly small. This paper reports on a large research project which uses a mixed method approach to explore attitudes to and perceptions of walking and cycling, and which examines the process of household decision-making for everyday travel and the constraints that this imposes. Using survey, interview and ethnographic data it is argued that many people hold ambiguous and sometimes contradictory views of walking and cycling as effective means of everyday travel, that what they do rarely matches precisely what they believe, and that the complexity and contingency associated with everyday travel for many households is a major barrier to the use of more sustainable travel modes. It is suggested that better understanding of these processes could help to inform both future transport policy and the promotion of walking and cycling for short trips in urban areas.     

Alcohol consumption and alcohol advertising bans

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between alcohol advertising bans and alcohol consumption. Most prior studies have found no effect of advertising on total alcohol consumption. A simple economic model is provided which explains these prior results. The data set used in this study is a pooled time series of data from 20 countries over 26 years. The empirical model is a simultaneous equations system which treats both alcohol consumption and alcohol advertising bans as endogenous. The primary conclusions of this study are that alcohol advertising bans decrease alcohol consumption and that alcohol consumption has a positive effect on the legislation of advertising bans. The results indicate that an increase of one ban could reduce alcohol consumption by 5% to 8%. The alcohol price elasticity is estimated at about 0.2. The results suggest that recent exogenous decreases in alcohol consumption will decrease the probability of enactment of new bans and undermine the continuance of existing bans. Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and Finland have recently rescinded alcohol advertising bans. Alcohol consumption in these countries may increase or decrease at a slower rate than would have occurred had advertising bans remained in place.