Comparison of fear in children with and without mental retardation : a study from Turkey

Fear, which is present right from the very early periods of human life is one of the most common forms of emotion. Intelligence is also suggested to be among the major factors that affect fear. This study was designed and conducted to examine the fears of trainable mentally retarded children and those without mental retardation. Eighty-eight trainable mentally retarded childern aged 10- 15 years and 122 children without mental retardation aged between 7-15 years were included in the study. The "Fear Survey for Children with and without Mental Retardation" developed by Ramirez and Kratochwill was used as the data collection tool. After statistical analysis, a significant relationship was found between mental retardation and the healthy states in terms of both the number of fear episodes and in its severity.peer-reviewe

Preferred Computer Activities During School Age: Indicators of Internet Addiction

Dramatic increase in the use of the internet in recent years has led to pathological use. This study is a preliminary investigation of the extent of internet addiction in 6(th), 7(th) and 8(th) grade school children in Ankara, Turkey. 106 boys and 110 girls participated in the study. Computer use subtest of the Turkish adaptation of the Computer Attitudes Questionnaire was applied. Results showed that boys are more into computer and internet use for various purposes. As children grow old, their internet use purposes seem to change as well as their daily computer use amounts increase. 6(th) graders are more into online gaming and using internet for studying whereas 8(th) graders mainly use internet for chatting. Vast majority of the 8(th) graders spend more than 5 hours on internet each day. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.WoSScopu

Comparative study of dispatching rules in a real-life job shop environment

In this paper, we compare the performance of dispatching rules in a real-life job shop environment and provide guidance for schedulers to determine effective dispatching rules for this type of systems. We consider a total of 20 dispatching rules, that range from some previously developed rules to some recently developed sophisticated rules such as process time plus work in next queue plus negative slack (PT + WINQ + SL), multi factor rule, and bottleneck dynamics. The performance measures examined are average weighted tardiness and proportion of tardy jobs. Discrete event simulation model based on ARENA is developed to implement the rules. Results from this study are given in detail

The interaction between culture and sex in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions

This study aims to reveal the effect of an interaction between culture and sex on the formation of entrepreneurial intentions, while building on notions of a cultural construction of gender. The study adopts the theory of planned behaviour as the setting for such exploration, as it has been proven to be robust across national contexts. The analysis is based on survey data collected from business students in Norway and Turkey. Both countries were selected as two distinct and opposite cultural constellations in accordance with the dissatisfaction approach to entrepreneurship. Turkey representing a relatively masculine, high power distance, uncertainty avoiding and collectivistic society; while Norway representing the opposite. Results show that Turkish students, regardless of sex, exhibit significantly higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions and self-efficacy. Male students, regardless of national background, exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions, self-efficacy and social norms. Finally, our study shows that the extent to which males differ from females in terms of their entrepreneurial intentions is contingent on the national cultural context from which they originate

Organizational Justice-Job Satisfaction Relationship: The Moderating Effects Of Big-Five Personality Traits In Banking Employees

This study investigates the effects of personality traits in organizational justice and job satisfaction relationship. Survey data were collected from 206 banking employees. Results of the hierarchical regression analyses postulate that both distributive and procedural justice are the predictors of job satisfaction and personality traits serve as moderators of the relationship between organizational justice and job satisfaction. Specifically, the effect of distributive justice on job satisfaction is most pronounced among individuals scoring high on agreeableness and conscientiousness, but low in neuroticism. However, the effect of procedural justice is most pronounced among individuals scoring high on agreeableness only. This research points out the necessity of including personality traits to better understand the impact of justice on job satisfaction and suggests that managers might apply different strategies for dealing with different personality traits to create an overall environment of fairness and enhance job satisfaction.Wo

The Mediating Effect Of Organizational Trust On The Link Between The Areas Of Work Life And Emotional Exhaustion

The study tests an integrative model that considers the plausible effects of different areas of work life on emotional exhaustion. It also tests the mediating effect of organizational trust on this relationship. More specifically, while perceived incongruence in six areas of work life (workload, fairness, reward, community, control and value) is treated as a predictor of emotional exhaustion, organizational trust is treated as a mediating factor in understanding the underlying mechanism of emotional exhaustion in academicians. Data were collected from 201 academicians working in public universities in Turkey and were analyzed using a structural equation model. Results provided partial support for the proposed conceptual model. Specifically, organizational trust mediated the link between four areas of work life (i.e., workload, fairness, reward, and value) and emotional exhaustion. Contrary to our expectations, the mediating effect of organizational trust was found to be insignificant for community and control. Findings suggest the importance of building organizational trust by focusing on six areas of work life in order to prevent burnout in academicians.WoSScopu

Job Insecurity and Turnover Intentions: Gender Differences and the Mediating Role of Work Engagement

The present study tests an integrative model that considers differential gender effects for the mediating role of work engagement on the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intentions in a predominantly Muslim country. Job insecurity was divided into two aspects: general concerns about losing one's job and concerns about losing the privileges (such as career advancement, stimulating work, competence, and pay development) that come from one's specific job. Data were collected from 309 private banking employees (107 women, 202 men, with a mean age of 33.58) in Marmara region, Turkey. The results of multi-group path analysis partially support the hypotheses. The differential gender effects for the mediating effect of work engagement were supported only on the concerns about losing job privileges -> turnover intention linkage, but not on the concerns about losing the job itself -> turnover intention linkage. Moreover, the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between concerns about losing job privileges and turnover intention was found to be stronger for women than for men. For men, work engagement acts only as a partial mediator, suggesting that concerns about the loss of job privileges exerts its effects on turnover intentions both directly and indirectly. Although the direct effect of concerns about losing the job itself on turnover intention is significant, the indirect effect through work engagement turns out to be nonsignificant for both genders. Our findings are discussed considering the business environment in Turkey as a Muslim country

Academics' Responses to Job Insecurity: The Mediating Effect of Job Satisfaction

This study investigates the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relation between job insecurity and exit, voice, loyalty and neglect (EVLN) responses. Data were collected from 232 academic employees. The authors test whether job satisfaction transmits the effects of the job insecurity on exit, voice, loyalty and neglect using path analyses via structural equation modelling. The analyses reveal that job satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between job insecurity and all of the employee responses (EVLN). However, the mediating role of job satisfaction is marginally significant for job insecurity-voice linkage. Within the insecure working context, our study has relevant implications for the managers/administrators whose aim to increase their staff's loyalty and to retain qualified employees, which in turn enables their organisations to be competitive. The findings of this study highlight that job satisfaction can be used as a remedy to alleviate the adverse effects job insecurity