Homelessness in today's urban centers poses a problem of huge proportions. Increasingly, the homeless and the urban dilemma are intertwined. Cause and effect are blurred as the needs of the homeless confront and affront while shaping urban policy. Because of the diverse nature and needs of the American homeless population, individual organizations are not able to provide the range of services necessary for survival on the street and long-term recovery off the street. The authors present a grounded theory study of coordination and communication in the provision of service to the urban homeless. They begin by reviewing theoretical perspectives on communication and coordination in interorganizational relationships. They then consider this literature in light of the urban homelessness context.
Burnout is an often-cited danger of human service work, and emotional communication is one of the most important causes of burnout in such jobs. In this paper, we review theoretical work on emotional communication and burnout, concentrating on the Empathic Communication Model of Burnout (Miller, Stiff, & Ellis, 1988). We then argue that a consideration of job involvement, organizational role, and attitude regarding service recipients could enhance the extent to which this model constitutes a complete understanding of the burnout process. We pose several research questions and one hypothesis regarding the role of these variables in affecting the fit of the Empathic Communication Model and test them with a sample of workers who provide services to the homeless. The results of our research provide support for a modified version of the Empathic Communication Model and suggest that the moderating variables of job involvement, organizational role, and attitude about service recipients influence the impact of various portions of the model in explaining burnout.
Stage / ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION CULTURES The goal of this project was to study organizational communication cultures in U.S.-Thai parent-subsidiary organizations doing business in Thailand and to then ascertain to what degree employees at the subsidiary locations participated in the creation of their organizational communication cultures. To understand the extent to which Thai employees perceived and negotiated aspects of organizational life, the idea of negotiated cultures was developed. Negotiated cultures characterize local employee participation and negotiation as a struggle about the legitimacy of whose norms/style (those of the parent or the subsidiary) would be used in the subsidiary location.
Wedman, I. & Stage, C. 1983. The Significance of Contents for Sex Differences in Test Results. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 27, 49-71. A common observation when using tests is that men and women arrive at different results. One of the proposed explanations to this fact is that the contents of the major parts of the tests are more adjusted to men's activities and interests. However, there are still many questions regarding the significance of the contents for obtained sex differences. The main purpose of this study was to examine to what extent it is possible to decide, by looking at the contents of the test items, which items are easy or difficult to judge for expected sex differences. Based on the item pool of the Swedish Scolastic Aptitude Test, two tests were constructed, a synonym test and a general knowledge test. The subjects were instructed to answer the items and to state whether they considered each item to be "male", "female" or "neutral". Results of this study show that sex differences are stable, but the possibilities to identify items which give rise to these differences between the sexes seem to be very limited. The hypothesis sometimes put forward that it is possible to predict which items give rise to sex differences was consequently not supported.
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