Women's Economic Participation on the Eve of Industrialization: Bizkaia,Spain, 1825

This contribution discusses, from the regional perspective of Bizkaia, Spain, adult women's labor force participation prior to industrialization, including the impact of economic, social, and demographic variables, such as family life cycle, marriage, and the presence of minor children in the household. Women's high level of participation – 68.6 percent for the entire province – varies considerably, depending on local economic conditions. Job opportunities for women and socioeconomic characteristics of households act as first-order explanatory factors. Women in proto-industrial economies, like Bizkaia's, which combined the extraction, transport, and marketing of iron with agriculture and fishing, show greater participation. Demand for women's labor was linked to jobs without recognized qualifications. The association of women's participation with demographic variables is not manifest in the historical data. The results show that supply factors do not explain the variance in women's activity.     

A South African Variety of Capitalism?

This paper explores the South African political economy through the lens of a variety of capitalism (VoC) approach. It argues that attempts were made in the early post-apartheid period to forge a more social-democratic and co-ordinated variety of capitalism, but that this floundered as the government adopted neoliberal macroeconomic policies against the wishes of organised labour, and as black economic empowerment policies further undermined an already racially-fraught business sector. Organised labour was able to push for, and maintain, protective labour market policies – but this came at the cost of growing policy inconsistency notably with regard to trade liberalisation which, in the presence of growing labour-market protection, has exacerbated South Africa's unemployment crisis. Unemployment remains intractable (and with it inequality) and corruption/patrimonialism appears to be a growing problem.     

Trialogue on Facebook pages of grocery stores: Customer engagement or customer enragement?

Abstract

The pervasiveness of social media is compelling businesses to review their way of managing customer experiences. Businesses use social media to interact and engage with customers. Several studies have studied why businesses have adopted social media. However, there is a dearth of research as to why customers interact with businesses on social media in the grocery sector. This paper aims to explore how and why customers react to corporate messages on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. Netnography approach was adopted to gain an insight into the various ways customers engage with the grocery stores on its Facebook pages. This study reveals that social media empower customers, influence the relationships customers have with grocery stores and generate customer engagement. Findings also show that the social customer is both a curse and a blessing to Tesco and Walmart when they create or destroy value for the business. This paper contributes to knowledge by (1) uncovering how customers react to corporate and customer posts on corporate Facebook pages; (2) showing how value can be created and destroyed; and (3) proposing a model illustrating how the main constructs of the study are interconnected: social media, relationship marketing, customer empowerment and customer engagement.     

Strategic social marketing to foster gender equality in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Gender equality is still facing many challenges in Indonesia; this also includes a prominent problem of gender-based violence. Social marketing approach has been used to promote gender-equality programmes tackling gender-based violence. MenCare+ is one of the examples of programmes in Indonesia that engage men with multicomponent, strategic, involves campaigns, education, training and policy advocacy with a number of objectives including improving access to services, increasing sexual and reproductive rights, and fostering gender equality. Some achievement has been made such as MoU with local government to promote male involvement in the use of contraception. However, gender-equality movement is still needed in order to change the mind set and paradigm towards gender equality, and social marketing can become a powerful tool to do it.

Abbreviations: MoU: memorandum of understanding; NGO: non-government organization     

The Link Between Participation in Management Decision-Making and Quality of Patient Care as Perceived by Chinese Doctors

Abstract

This study examined whether and how participation by doctors in management decision-making was associated with patient care. A questionnaire survey was conducted in three hospitals operating in China. Staff members of the selected hospitals were invited to participate in the survey, measuring perceived quality of patient care, employee participation in management decisions, psychological empowerment and affective commitment. This study focuses on the results of the 160 doctors employed by the hospitals who completed the questionnaire. The study found that psychological empowerment and affective commitment mediated the relationship between participation in management decisions and the quality of patient care as perceived by the doctors. Implications are drawn for public management practice in Chinese health care settings.     

社会性别视角下的大学生就业探析——基于“边疆女大学生急嫁族”的个案分析

本文从"边疆女大学生急嫁族"异军突起的社会现象出发,以社会学的眼光和社会性别文化的视角审视此种现象,分析和挖掘现象背后的深层原因,通过展现"边疆女大学生急嫁族"的生成环境,旨在呼吁先进的社会性别文化,矫正变态的就业选择,突破边疆女大学生就业弱势的瓶颈。     

Transformational leadership and followers' attitudes: the mediating role of psychological empowerment

There is now strong evidence that transformational leadership substantially influences the work attitudes and behaviours of followers. However, the mechanisms by which transformational leaders influence their followers have not been studied in a systematic fashion. The purpose of the present study is, therefore, to analyse how transformational leadership promotes: i) job satisfaction among employees; and ii) affective commitment to the organization. In particular, the possible mediating role of psychological empowerment in these two relationships is conceptually hypothesised and empirically tested. The results demonstrate that psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee attitudes.     

The effects of the PDCA cycle and OJT on workplace learning

In the present article, we examined the effects of the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle and on-the-job-training (OJT) on workplace learning. We defined workplace learning based on the concept of an organizational learning cycle. Using survey data from a Japanese fire and marine insurance company, we found that PDCA, OJT (empowerment), and reflective communication had positive effects on workplace learning. These results suggest that quality management, empowerment and reflective practice may help to significantly improve workplace learning. We also discuss theoretical and managerial implications of this study.     

心理资本前因变量的理论探讨

在知识经济时代,人力资本与社会资本的投资是组织创造竞争优势的重要源泉,而心理资本的投资与开发则是组织创造竞争优势的基础和动力。心理资本是个体一般积极性的核心心理要素,组织氛围、心理授权、领导情绪智力、组织文化、高绩效工作系统等因素会影响员工的心理资本水平,因此,应从这些角度更好地开发和有效干预员工心理资本,来保持组织竞争优势。     

市场经济条件下女大学生择业心理调查及分析

通过对女大学生择业心理的分析和社会对人才要求的标准,针对女大学生存在的自卑心理以及在择业过程中遇到的心理问题,进行了必要的指导并提出了择业必备条件及对策,对解决女大学生择业具有一定的指导作用。