Building a Career: The Effect of Initial Job Experiences and Related Work Attitudes on Later Employment

Examines the effects of initial job experiences and attitudes of young people in shaping their lifetime employment experience.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1153/thumbnail.jp

Extension of ketene-mediated asymmetric methodology

Ketenes are molecules containing a carbonyl group connected to an alkylidene group by way of a double bond (a pi-bond). The electrophilic nature of ketenes at their center, sp-hybridized carbon atom is the origin of many of the chemical transformations availible to these molecules. Previously in the Nelson laboratory, ketenes had been successfully employed in the acyl halide-aldehyde cyclocondensation (AAC) reaction. Both Lewis acid- and Lewis base-catalyzed AAC processes provide access to optically active 3,4-disubstituted-syn-2-oxetanones. The work described herein employs ketene in the Lewis base-catalyzed AAC reaction in an attempt to improve and expand the general utility of this reaction technology. This improved AAC methodology was then applied in the total synthesis of the natural product motuporin. Ketene was subsequently employed in the development of a novel ketene-Claisen rearrangement

Taking the Charisma Out: Teaching as Facilitation

The author provides a personal account of his transition from attempting to use charisma to transmit knowledge to students to removing it so that students can themselves experience knowledge as a basis for learning. Consistent with inquiry-based democratic pedagogy, the author demonstrates how he became more a facilitator of learning than its transmitter. He shows how putting charisma into unscheduled classroom inquiry rather than into the teacher’s delivery can produce knowledge collectively and concurrently co-constructed in service of action

A mixed method approach to exploring landowner interest in woody plantings to integrate conservation and production on Missouri farms

Agroforestry plantings can provide multiple benefits such as reduced soil erosion, decreased nutrient runoff, increased biodiversity, and greater farm income stability. This array of benefits makes them a promising ecologically based model for agricultural production that simultaneously achieves conservation goals. Despite the benefits conservation programs can provide, many landowners are hesitant to enroll and take land out of agricultural production. This study explores the potential to use food producing tree and shrub species, and/or incorporating cultural benefits like recreation and improved visual quality of the landscape, to increase the likelihood landowners in Missouri would commit to a conservation program. Conservation professionals across the state were interviewed to gather in-depth knowledge on the types of conservation planting designs that include trees and shrubs, conservation agency knowledge and promotion of agroforestry practices, and the relationships between landowners and conservation agencies. The interviews provided direction for a statewide survey to collect landowner perspectives and preferences for different planting plans for their farm and captured their interest in participating in conservation programs to assist in the planting of trees and shrubs on their land. Together, this information helps highlight the opportunities for incorporating agroforestry plantings in conservation programs.Includes bibliographical references

Organizations Don’t Resist Change, People Do: Modeling Individual Reactions to Organizational Change Through Loss and Terror Management

This article has three premises that stand in contrast to emphases found in contemporary organizational change research. First, examination of resistance must start with the individual. Organizations don’t resist change, people do. Second, people react not to the change per se, but to the loss it represents. Third, loss engenders a deeply rooted peril response that is largely emotional in nature. To support these premises, we apply Terror Management Theory to locate resistance in existential buffers: emotional defense mechanisms that prevent awareness of loss and allow participation in a larger meaningful system. We argue that the buffers threatened during organizational change are consistency, standards/justice, and culture. These in turn negatively impact the individual capabilities of sensemaking, competency, and identity. A theoretical model is erected that integrates buffers and capabilities with different levels, or types, of organizational change. Modeling multilayered affective, cognitive, and behavioral forces is necessary to unravel successful change initiatives

Professionalism and the Millbank Tendency: The Political Sociology of New Labour's employees

This article analyses party employees, one of the most under-researched subjects in the study of British political parties. We draw on a blend of quantitative and qualitative data in order to shed light on the social and political profiles of Labour Party staff, and on the question of their professionalisation. The latter theme is developed through a model derived from the sociology of professions. While a relatively limited proportion of party employees conform to the pure ideal-type of professionalism, a considerably greater number manifest enough of the core characteristics of specialisation, commitment, mobility, autonomy and self-regulation to be reasonably described as 'professionals in pursuit of political outcomes'

Information architecture for effective Workload Control: an insight from a successful implementation

The implementation of Workload Control (WLC), a Production Planning and Control concept uniquely designed for Make-To-Order companies, has been a constant challenge. Scholars argued that WLC is largely developed through simulations of well-defined environments while much more complex circumstances (e.g. information availability) have emerged in field research. A recent trend of WLC research is to improve the practical applicability of the concept, where empirical evidence is essential. However, success in WLC implementation remains impeded. The availability of data has been a significant area that frustrates the implementation process. While there is a tendency to simplify data requirements in recent WLC theory development, it is important to understand and maintain the information that is essential for the concept to be effective. For the first time in the field, this paper details the information architecture for WLC. Key informational entities of relevance to the input/output control functions in WLC as well as performance measurement are discussed based on evidence from a successful implementation. The paper not only sheds light for practitioners on how to construct an information system that facilitates successful WLC implementation but also has implications for future development of WLC mechanisms coping with information uncertainties in practice

Advancing tendencies? PR leadership, general leadership, and leadership pedagogy

What are the best ways to advance PR leadership? In exploring answers, we consider the last two decades of PR literature and identify two main tendencies. We link those two with general leadership literature and practices, as well as with literature on leadership pedagogy. We conclude that, rather than recent moves to look within the field, without self-reflection, to existing PR perspectives and figures for solutions, looking outwards has greater potential to transform not only the PR leadership literature, and PR practice, but also to create less hierarchical, and more democratic and "leaderful," PR workplaces. © 2014