Investigating The Dimensions Of Social Responsibility And The Consequences For Corporate Financial Performance

Corporate social responsibility as an area of scientific inquiry has received little attention in the popular and academic press during the last decade. Efforts to investigate social responsibility and its relationship to corporate performance have been frustrated by a lack of adequate operationalizations and measures of social responsibility. Regardless of the reasons for this inattention to the is- sues of corporate responsibility, the tide appears to be turning. Recently, TIAA-CREF, the largest institutional trader in the country, initiated an optional fund which invests exclusively in firms that are deemed socially responsible. Such actions suggest that corporations will increasingly be held accountable for activity of concern to multiple stakeholder groups. As a result there will likely be a renewed interest in identifying the dimensions and consequences of corporate social responsibilities

Job-related expenditures of gainfully employed female household heads in Corvallis, Oregon

The purpose of this study was to examine the job-related expenditures of female household heads. Also examined were levels of education, occupations, presence of dependent children, employment benefits and reasons for working. A random sample of 75 female household heads was drawn from the 1973 Polk's Corvallis City Directory. The sample was composed of 28 divorced, 3 separated, 15 single and 28 widowed women living in Corvallis, Oregon. The interviews were conducted during March and April of 1974. The median age for the 75 household heads was 51 years. They had completed a mean of 15 years of schooling. Single household heads were both younger, with a median age of 32, and had a higher level of education, 17 years, than widows and divorced women. Forty-nine percent of the female household heads were professional workers; 39 percent were clerical and sales workers; and the remaining 12 percent were semiskilled workers. Eighty percent of the single household heads were employed in professional occupations, compared with 45 percent of the widows and 38 percent of the divorced and separated women. Median employment income for all 75 household heads was $7, 249. For the 68 women who had worked the entire year, the median employment income was$7, 500 and the mean, $8, 162. Hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 1, there is no relationship between level of education of the female household head and amount of earnings, was not supported by the data and it was rejected. As the level of education increased, the employment income also increased. Household heads who had not completed high school were employed in the lowest-paying occupations. Full-time workers who were college graduates earned 52 percent more than high school graduates and 14 percent more than household heads with some college education. Household heads who had master's degrees earned 36 percent more than college graduates. Household heads with doctoral degrees earned 28 percent more than those with master's degrees. Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 2, between 40 and 50 percent of the employed female household heads' income from gainful employment was absorbed by job-related expenditures, was not supported by the data. There was a significant difference at the .01 level and the hypothesis was rejected. Female household heads in the study reported 35.8 percent of their cash employment income was used for job-related expenditures or a mean of$2, 930. Payroll deductions absorbed the highest percentage of employment income, 26.5 percent or a mean of $2, 164. Federal income taxes were the highest reported expense, 13.7 percent, with a mean of$1, 122 and a range of $1. 15 to$4, 441. Directly-related expenses were reported as 5.2 percent of the employment income. Education related to the job and transportation were the highest directly-related expenses, 1.5 and 1.6 percent, respectively. Indirectly-related expenses amounted to 4.1 percent of the employment income. Clothing needed for work was the most expensive indirectly-related expense reported, 1.5 percent. Hypothesis 3. Hypothesis 3, there is no difference in percentage of employment income spent for job-related expenses of female household heads with dependent children aged 18 and under and those without dependent children, was accepted since no significant difference in the percentage of income spent was found at the .025 level in a two-tailed "t" test. Female household heads with dependent children reported 36.9 percent of their employment income was spent on job-related expenses and those without children reported 35. 8 percent. Hypothesis 4. For female household heads with dependent children aged 18 and under, there is no difference in the percentage of employment income spent for job-related expenses of household heads with preschool children and those with no preschool children. Hypothesis 4 was not tested. Only two household heads in the study had children of preschool age. Female household heads reported receiving a mean dollar value of $168 in employment benefits. Eighty-three percent of the 75 workers reported receiving health insurance with a mean value of$79. Cash bonuses were valued at a mean of $22 and employer discounts at$21 for all workers. A combined mean dollar value of $44 was received for meals, coffee and snacks, life insurance, gifts from the employer, laundering and drycleaning of work clothing and discounts from other organizations. Only two reasons for working were given by more than 50 percent of the 75 household heads, These reasons were to pay for current living expenses and because they enjoyed working

Single Or Multiple Competitive Strategies For Small Businesses?

This research focuses upon the association between external environments, planning, and the development of competitive strategy in small business firms. The population ecology model l of organizations and their environments emphasizes that only some organizations, e.g., those with the right characteristics, will be selected for survival. While management is not impotent, this model clearly emphasizes ways in which external environments directly influence the fate of organizations (Aldrich, 1979)

Clinical Utility of a Commercial LAM-ELISA Assay for TB Diagnosis in HIV-Infected Patients Using Urine and Sputum Samples

Background: The accurate diagnosis of TB in HIV-infected patients, particularly with advanced immunosuppression, is difficult. Recent studies indicate that a lipoarabinomannan (LAM) assay (Clearview-TB (R)-ELISA) may have some utility for the diagnosis of TB in HIV-infected patients; however, the precise subgroup that may benefit from this technology requires clarification. The utility of LAM in sputum samples has, hitherto, not been evaluated.Methods: LAM was measured in sputum and urine samples obtained from 500 consecutively recruited ambulant patients, with suspected TB, from 2 primary care clinics in South Africa. Culture positivity for M. tuberculosis was used as the reference standard for TB diagnosis.Results: Of 440 evaluable patients 120/387 (31%) were HIV-infected. Urine-LAM positivity was associated with HIV positivity (p = 0.007) and test sensitivity, although low, was significantly higher in HIV-infected compared to uninfected patients (21% versus 6%; p<0.001), and also in HIV-infected participants with a CD4 <200 versus <200 cells/mm(3) (37% versus 0%; p = 0.003). Urine-LAM remained highly specific in all 3 subgroups (95%-100%). 25% of smear-negative but culture-positive HIV-infected patients with a CD4 <200 cells/mm(3) were positive for urine-LAM. Sputum-LAM had good sensitivity (86%) but poor specificity (15%) likely due to test cross-reactivity with several mouth-residing organisms including actinomycetes and nocardia species.Conclusions: These preliminary data indicate that in a high burden primary care setting the diagnostic usefulness of urine-LAM is limited, as a rule-in test, to a specific patient subgroup i.e. smear-negative HIV-infected TB patients with a CD4 count <200 cells/mm(3), who would otherwise have required further investigation. However, even in this group sensitivity was modest. Future and adequately powered studies in a primary care setting should now specifically target patients with suspected TB who have advanced HIV infection

Design and Beam Test Results for the sPHENIX Electromagnetic and Hadronic Calorimeter Prototypes

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Cómo poner puertas al campo : tres revisiones panorámicas sobre el uso de biomarcadores en prevención personalizada de enfermedades crónicas

Se incluye PDF de la presentación y vídeo del seminario.El seminario trata de dar respuesta a qué biomarcadores hay disponibles o en desarrollo para la prevención personalizada de enfermedades crónicas en la población general. Las revisiones realizadas resumen las principales características y conclusiones de la bibliografía sobre este tema. Abarca los tres principales grupos de enfermedades crónicas:11 tipos de cáncer, 9 enfermedades cardiovasculares y 7 enfermedades neurodegenerativas.N

Reading and writing for social change: Exploring literacy performances and identity work with queer youth

This study is a critical and activist ethnography that explores literacy performances and identity work of queer youth. These youth often experience abuse, neglect, isolation, and self-contempt as a result of heterosexism and homophobia. These forms of oppression are catalysts for queer youth dropping out of schools, obstacles in their literacy learning, and barriers to their identity work. As such, they become problems in the field of educational literacy research. Grounded in New Literacy Studies, Queer Theory, and Feminism, this study addresses these problems by exploring with queer youth the ways in which their literacy performances and identity work disrupt the heterosexism and homophobia in their lives. The study draws from the experiences shared and relationships developed with youth over a three-year period in which the researcher worked in an urban youth-run center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. Through this work, I observed and worked with youth as they used literacy performances to engage in identity work as queer youth, to imagine what it would be like to do this kind of work in other contexts, and to make space for themselves to implement these imaginings. I understood youth working both to separate and synthesize the work they do in and out of the center, the community, and school. Further I worked with youth as they struggled to develop identities that connected them with communities while distinguishing them as individuals. Activism played an important role in their work together not only because it allowed them to assert their agency in working against that which oppressed them but also because it allowed them to experience both individual and group identities, without having to sacrifice one for the other. This study contributes to the educational literacy research conversations that explore literacy, identity, and in and out of school learning in ways that not only make the queer heard, but also work to disrupt the notion of mainstream and marginal so that all youth who have been traditionally underserved in schools and communities have opportunities to read and write for social change