AcaWiki - User contributions [en]

A framework for the Study of Fertility Determinants

2011-11-30T05:18:33Z

JlLatham3: None

{{Summary
|title=A framework for the Study of Fertility Determinants
|authors=Bulatao, R. A., Lee, R.
|tags=uw-madison, wisconsin, sociology, demography, prelim, qual, WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009
|summary=Notes: Fertility involves both biology and individual choice, the former modified by cultural patterns and the latter strongly influenced by economic and social conditions. The framework proposed here considers the demand side (individual choice + economic and social constraints), supply side (biology and culture) and finally the costs of regulation (access and use) through which choices are made effective. In this framework supply and demand refers to SURVIVING CHILDREN, rather than to BIRTHS. These will differ because of infant and child mortality. It is assumed that parents make choices mainly among alternative family sizes rather than among alternative number of births. The supply side is the number of children that a couple would have if they made no deliberate attempt to limitation. SUPPLY DEPENDS ON NUMBER OF BIRTHS AND CHANCES OF SURVIVAL. The supply side is therefore [http://www.psychicreviewonline.com/recommended-psychics.php recommended psychics] brings the concept of natural fertility that is defined as the fertility of a population that makes no deliberate effort to limit births. The natural fertility was later refined to refer to fertility in the absence of parity-dependent birth control. The specification that natural fertility be free of parity-dependent control suggests that the shape of the age-specific schedule of marital fertility will be determined by the decline of fecundity with age. Natural fertility depends partially on cultural practices relating to such behaviors as intercourse, abstinence, and breastfeeding. SUPPLY IS NOT PURELY BIOLOGICAL. Five major influences on natural fertility can be identified: 1) Postpartum infecundability Taboos and breastfeeding are the main influences. Breastfeeding depresses fertility by delaying the return of ovulation following a birth and taboos reduce exposure. The practice of postnatal abstinence is often linked to lactation. 2) Waiting time to conception depends largely on frequency of intercourse. Fecundity (ovulation) is also important. 3) Intrauterine mortality influenced by age and some diseases 4) Permanent sterility 5) Entry into the reproductive span Demand side depends on the desired number of children. Demand can be seen as determined by the interplay between TASTES and CONSTRAINTS, apart from the constraints of supply and fertility regulation costs. A couple is assumed to have some preferences between children and other goods. QUALITY AND QUANTITY of children are considered. Fertility regulation involves costs of access and use. Therefore, costs include health risks, social costs, such as the fear of violating social norms, and psychic costs, such as those relating to engaging in behavior that it is unfamiliar, unpleasant, or considered morally questionable. e Motivation to control is also an issue. Higher regulation costs should make actual control less likely, though high costs could conceivably be overcome if motivation were very strong. DETERMINANTS OF SUPPLY, DEMAND AND REGULATION a) REPRODUCTIVE HISTORY nuptiality patterns (marriages, divorces and remarriage) and childbearing experience affects tastes and perceptions about the advantages and disadvantages of parenthood. b) SOCIOECONOMIC, DEMOGRAPHIC AND BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS - Education, income, urban residence, labor force participation (women), religion, age, health status, ethnicity. c) SOCIETY AND CULTURE roles in society and social stratification, norms and values and policies. LEVEL OF ANALYSIS: COUPLE OR HOUSEHOLD. . Framework developed from the perspective of married couples. Unmarried frequency of intercourse is an issue.
}}

Electronic groups at work

2011-11-30T05:17:51Z

JlLatham3: None

{{Summary
|title=Electronic groups at work
|authors=Tom Finholt, Lee S. Sproull
|tags=CSCW,email,groups,teams,organization theory
|summary=Finholt and Sproull set out to study electronic groups in an organizational context. Specifically, their work is a largely descriptive take on organizational use of group email with an eye toward characterizing electronic group activity and comparing electronic groups to theory of groups more generally to determine whether electronic groups exhibit the characteristics theorists have ascribed to more traditional forms of groups.

The paper opens with an theory review and a consideration of the the existing focus on research onto groups in organization in the context of electronic groups based around discussion lists. The background considers group attributes (e.g. member characteristics and criteria), group processes around interaction, influence attempts, identity maintenance, and organization consequences like performance. Finholt and Sproull focus on the first two in their analysis.

The basic research questions (and the follow-up analysis) are very broad:

# What is the nature and scope of discussion list activity within the study organization?
# Do discussion lists exhibit the fundamental social processes of groups?
# Do pure electronic groups exhibit (a) a higher degree of interaction than do augmenting ones (b) more influence attempts (c) more identity maintainence (d) larger size (e) more geographic dispersal.

Finholt and Sproull use a somewhat bizarrely constructed dataset from a large Fortune 500 company with 100,000 employees of which 3,700 used an email system with support for arbitrary groups on a variety of topics both related to work and outside of work activities (e.g., movie reviewing groups). They use a stratified sample of 96 employees and gather 1248 messages that includes all incoming and outgoing messages. Of these, 616 messages were from groups. They ask each user, each time they send a message, what the message was about and if they could have received the information some other way.

Their results are primarily qualitative and include extensive quotations from a variety of different groups including a film criticism group and another group called the "rowdies" which seemed to be an irreverent discussion and drinking club. They characterize the diversity of work and non-work related groups in depth and discuss some of the major disagreements on the lists.

The authors conclude that all three social processes of groups are clearly shown in the discussion lists in the authors' sample with large amounts of interaction, influence, and identity work. They conclude that play at work is one thing they saw frequently in the use of discussion lists that may point to discussion lists as an opportunity for studying play at work.
|relevance=Finholt and Sproull was one of the first studies on the use of electronic mail groups in firms. As email has become commonplace and even taken for granted in most organizations, and outside, its major conclusions seem obvious or even banal. It's hard to imagine the paper being published today. It is hard not to approach the paper with a "so what?" attitude.

The authors seem to treat discussion lists as more generalizable than they are actually are. In hindsight, many aspects of the system in their focus organization seems idiosyncratic or simple a matter of the particular time and place. Today, many of the groups would be much more likely to be found on [http://www.psychicreviewonline.com/recommended-psychics.php recommended psychics] outside of the firm.

The paper has been cited 300 times since it's publication 20 years ago.
|journal=Organization Science
|pub_date=1990
|subject=Computer Science
|journal_vol=1
|pub_open_access=No
}}

Aging, obsolescence, and organizational innovation

2011-11-30T05:17:38Z

JlLatham3: None

{{Summary
|title=Aging, obsolescence, and organizational innovation
|authors=Jesper B. Srensen, Toby E. Stuart
|tags=aging, innovation, age
|summary=Quite a large part of the literature on innovation and organizations and industries speaks to the question of a relationship between age and innovation. There is conflicting information on age. On the one hand, large established Fortune 500 firms patent at a much higher rate than new firms. On the other hand, Utterback and Abernathy's work speaks about process innovation and product innovation and life cycles of established firms which suggests that established firms may be vulnerable.

Srensen and Stuart aim to contribute to the literature on organizations and aging in a number of ways. Unlike much of the literature that distinguishes between entrants and incumbents, the authors treat age as a continuum and look at its relationship to innovation. Second, they depart from the industry life-cycle model by considering each firm based on its own "internal" clock of life time.

The authors suggest four formal hypotheses (all quoted verbatim):

# Organizational age will be positive associated with the rate of innovation.
# When compared to young companies, older firms will show a greater tendency to build on their previous innovative activity.
# As firms age, their current-period innovations will tend to elaborate on and refine older areas of technology.
# In the broader industrial community, the innovations of older firms will be less influential on subsequent technology development than will those of their younger counterparts.

The authors empirical work is presented with firms from both the semiconductor industry and biotechnology. Innovative activity was measured as the rate of patenting. They looked as self-citing versus non-self-citing patents to test hypothesis 2. The authors use event-history analysis to test their hypotheses. They control for firm size.

The results show strong support for the authors hypotheses. They show that older organizations gain efficiency over time through the creation of routines and produce more patents controlling for [http://www.psychicreviewonline.com psychic readings] firm size. However, they also show that organizational capabilities seem to decline with age. Essentially, increased productivity seems to be connected to an increased entrenchment into a particular area which, in environments like semiconductors and biotechnology where the demand of the environment are changing quickly, puts the firm out of sync and ultimately less well adapted.
|relevance=Srensen and Stuart's article has been cited more than 400 times in the 10 years since it was published in the literature on organizations, environments, and learning.
|journal=Administrative Science Quarterly
|pub_date=2000
|doi=10.2307/2666980
|subject=Business
|journal_vol=45
|pub_open_access=
}}