An Introduction to School-To-Work Programs in the NLSY97: How Prevalent are They, and Which Youths do They Serve?

In the wake of the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), we introduce and study two new data sources to estimate the extent to which school-to-work programs have been implemented in U.S. high schools, and the extent to which high school students are participating in these programs. The first data source, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97), provides information directly form students on whether they participated in these programs. The second source, the 1996 School Administrators's Survey, was administered to schools attended by NLSY97 interviewees, and provides information directly from schools on whether they offered any school-to-work programs. Findings from the 1996 School Administrator's Survey show that school-to-work programs are commonly offered, with over 60 percent of schools providing at least one such program. Findings from the NLSY97 show that a fair number of high school students participate in school-to-work programs, with about 38 percent of students reporting participation in at least one program. The findings concerning whether schools with disadvantaged student populations are more likely to offer school-to-work programs, or whether less-advantaged students are more likely to participate in these programs, are mixed.

Enforceability of labor law : evidence from a labor court in Mexico

The authors analyze lawsuits involving publicly-appointed lawyers in a labor court in Mexico to study how a rigid law is enforced. They show that, even after a judge has awarded something to a worker alleging unjust dismissal, the award goes uncollected 56 percent of the time. Workers who are dismissed after working more than seven years, however, do not leave these awards uncollected because their legally-mandated severance payments are larger. A simple theoretical model is used to generate predictions on how lawsuit outcomes should depend on the information available to the worker and on the worker's cost of collecting an award after trial, both of which are determined in part by the worker's lawyer. Differences in outcomes across lawyers are consistent with the hypothesis that firms take advantage both of workers who are poorly informed and of workers who find it more costly to collect an award after winning at trial.Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Information Security&Privacy,Legal Products,Microfinance,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress

Design Process and Organisational Strategy: A Storytelling Perspective

This paper explores the relationship between design process and organisational strategy through a storytelling perspective by providing a literature review; firstly, in relation to society in general; establishing a contextual background to the research. Secondly, by relating this to a) how designers and design researchers examine storytelling within design process, and b) how organisational strategists theorise storytelling. Then finally, through comparing and contrasting the literature, unearth the relevancies of using a storytelling perspective and uncover opportunities for understanding how design process impacts organisational strategy. It is apparent that certain underlying principles in adopting a storytelling perspective when employing organisational strategy and design process coexist. Foremost are the human centred focuses; in particular building relationships and constructing identities. Concerning the approaches to storytelling, a shared desire to elicit emotional resonance with audiences exists in the use of characterisation. During collaboration between designers and organisations, stories resulting from the design process will incontrovertibly have the potential to impact that company’s peoples. Examining collaborations between designers and organisations from the perspective of storytelling could lead to a deeper understanding of the impact design can have in an organisation, particularly along the themes of a sense of community, constructing meaning and affecting change within organisations