The Role of Trust in European Food Chains: Theory and Empirical Findings

In Europe, consumer trust in food has become one of the most important factors for the stability of the food sector. An essential prerequisite for the ability to communicate the trustworthiness of food to consumers (B2C) is the creation, maintenance, and communication of trust between companies across the entire food value chain (B2B). For the management and preservation of trust in food chains it is important to know whether differences occur across European countries or whether distinct product chains show variations regarding trust. Based on a survey in five European countries with 747 respondents, this paper assesses the current level of trust between companies together with its influencing structural factors in European food chains and determines criteria allowing the active management of the level of trust in business relations in food chains by estimating a structural equation model.trust, levels of trust, determinants to trust, food chain management, trust management, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

College-Related Stress and Substance Use: Experiences of Honors and Non-Honors Students

Although there is a wealth of research knowledge related to risk behavior engagement of the general student population, there is less specifically reported about honors students. To address this gap in research, non-honors and honors students were surveyed to determine possible differences in risk behavior engagement. Students were recruited through the East Tennessee State University psychology subject pool and via direct email messages to an honors student-specific listserv. We hypothesized that honors students would have differences in terms of GPA and number of credit hours, endorse more substance use and have more perceived stress compared to non-honors students. The survey sample was majority non-honors students (90.5%; n = 383), with 9.5% (n = 40) honors undergraduate students. After conducting chi-square tests of independence and independent t-tests we determined that there were no significant differences in substance use, life events, or emotional dysregulation between groups. However, upon analyzing demographic information honors students reported significantly higher GPAs (M = 3.77, SD = 0.32) than non-honors students (M = 3.53, SD = 0.53), t(404) = -2.72, p = .007. Additionally, honors students reported a higher number of credit hours than non-honors students, t(403) =-4.26, p \u3c .001, with non-honors students taking an average of 14.67 (SD = 2.63) credit hours and honors students an average of 16.53 (SD = 1.81) credit hours. No other significant demographic differences were observed. Our findings did not show significant differences within populations, but rather, that honors students likely encounter stress and engage in risk behaviors just as much as non-honors students

The Impact of Emotional Labor on Burnout Over Time : How Emotional Work Impacts Well-Being at Work

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Burnout is the emotional, mental, and physical strain associated with prolonged work stress (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1986). Although this is a problem in many professions, mental health providers are at a heightened risk of burnout (Salyers et al., 2015). One of the reasons for this increase in burnout may be the demands put on mental health workers to manage their own emotions while dealing with the intense emotional and mental health situations of their clients. Emotional labor, or the management of emotions at work, is conceptualized as two different emotion regulation strategies: surface acting and deep acting (Grandey, 2000). Surface acting, or faking emotions, has been associated with significant mental health and job-related problems, including burnout in populations such as call center employees and service workers. The psychological impact of deep acting, or internally attempting to change your emotions, is less clear, and may actually be associated with positive outcomes (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). However, little work has looked at the impact of emotional labor on mental health providers. The current study aims to examine how surface acting and deep acting are related to burnout over time in mental health providers. The proposed study is secondary analysis from a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funded trial “The impact of burnout on patient-centered care: A comparative effectiveness trial in mental health (Salyers et al., 2018). 193 Clinicians reported burnout symptoms and frequency of employing emotional labor strategies at baseline, with 127 clinicians completing all four time-points: baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses and cross-lagged panels to examine the impact of surface acting and deep acting on burnout over the course of 12 months. Surface acting was significantly associated with all three dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment) cross-sectionally. Using cross-lagged panel models, depersonalization at baseline significantly predicted surface acting three and six months later. Surface acting and personal accomplishment had a bidirectional relationship: increased surface acting at baseline was associated with personal accomplishment at three months and decreased personal accomplishment at baseline and was associated with increased surface acting at three and six months. Deep acting moderated the relationship between surface acting and personal accomplishment at baseline, but not longitudinally. The current study is the first study that has examined the relationship between surface acting and burnout in community mental health professionals. While surface acting may not result in burnout three months later for dimensions other than personal accomplishment, two dimensions of burnout (depersonalization and decreased personal accomplishment) were associated with higher levels of surface acting three and six months later. This suggests that surface acting may have consequences for feelings of accomplishment at work, but more so, may be used a coping mechanism in reaction to some aspects of burnout

Melanie Sandy Fischer: Disorder-Specific Patterns of Emotion Coregulation in Couples: Comparing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Anorexia Nervosa

Impaired emotion regulation and maladaptive strategies to manage distress are central to psychopathology, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anorexia nervosa (AN). Emotion regulation can be fostered or thwarted by romantic partners, and the tendency to rely on interpersonal emotion regulation may vary by disorder. The current study examined disorder-specific patterns of emotion coregulation in couples in which one partner suffers from OCD or AN. Research suggests that patients with OCD heavily rely on partners to regulate distress while patients with AN shut partners out. It was hypothesized that OCD is associated with exaggerated and AN with diminished coregulation, and that OCD patients show greater overall emotional arousal than AN patients. Greater symptom severity was expected to exacerbate these opposing tendencies. Following treatment, emotional arousal and coregulation were expected to decrease in OCD patients and increase in AN patients. Vocally encoded emotional arousal (fundamental frequency) was measured during couple conversations before and after couple-based treatment among 52 couples in which one partner suffered from either OCD or AN. Two indicators of emotion coregulation from a dynamic systems perspective (covariation and coupling) were analyzed using cross-lagged actor-partner interdependence and coupled linear oscillator models. OCD patients showed greater overall emotional arousal than AN patients, and emotional arousal further decreased in AN patients with treatment. Covariation differed in the opposite direction of the hypothesis (greater in AN compared to OCD); there was no difference in coupling. AN patients exhibited consistent coregulation, indicating high reactivity to partners` emotional arousal which may contribute to interpersonal avoidance. OCD couples showed limited predictability of patients’ emotional arousal over time, while partners were affected by the patients’ arousal; thus, symptom accommodation may in part be partners’ attempts at managing their own distress. Symptom severity was not associated with emotional arousal or coregulation. As expected, coregulation decreased in OCD couples after treatment, but was mostly maintained in AN couples. This was the first investigation of emotion coregulation in couples relative to psychopathology, which adds to a more comprehensive understanding of interpersonal factors in OCD and AN. Ultimately, future insights could serve to identify interpersonally oriented targets to optimize treatment.Doctor of Philosoph

Bad guys, good guys, or something in between? Corporate governance contributions in zones of violent conflict

In der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung wurden Unternehmen über lange Zeit hinweg als Akteure betrachtet, die Gewaltkonflikte eher verschärfen oder verlängern. Dies wurde insbesondere durch die Forschung zu Kriegsökonomien und zur Rolle natürlicher Ressourcen in Konflikten bekräftigt. In der Global Governance-Forschung wurde in den letzten Jahren jedoch auch diskutiert, inwieweit privatwirtschaftliche Akteure bzw. Unternehmen Steuerungsleistungen erbringen können und welche spezifische Rolle sie in Konfliktregionen haben. Das Forschungsprojekt zu 'Unternehmen in Konfliktzonen' an der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung greift diese Debatte über die potenziell positive Rolle von Unternehmen auf und geht der Frage nach, wie und unter welchen Bedingungen Unternehmen in Konfliktzonen zu Sicherheit und Frieden beitragen. Es wird dabei angenommen, dass Unternehmen dies auf zwei unterschiedlichen Wegen tun können: erstens unintentional durch ihre Geschäftstätigkeit und zweitens durch intentionale Aktivitäten im Rahmen von Corporate Governance. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden hierzu vier Fallstudien vorgestellt: (1) die Nahrungs- und Getränkeindustrie in Ruanda, (2) das Logistikunternehmen 'Kühne+Nagel' in Nordirland, (3) der Reiseveranstalter 'Studiosus' in Israel und (4) der Mineralölkonzern 'Shell' in Nigeria. (ICG

Shear Wave Ultrasonic Technique as an NDE Tool for Composite Laminates Before and After Curing

The highly anisotropic elastic properties of the plies in a composite laminate, especially those manufactured from unidirectional prepregs, interact strongly with the inplane vibration of shear ultrasonic waves propagating through its thickness1–3. The transmitted signals in a “crossed polarizer” configuration (with the transmitting and receiving transducers perpendicular to each other) were found to be particularly sensitive to ply orientation and layup sequence in a laminate4,5. This technique therefore holds good potential to be an NDE tool for detecting layup errors during the manufacturing of composite components. In such measurements, the transmitting transducer and the receiving transducer were rotated simultaneously, referred to as an azimuthal scan, while maintaining perpendicularity between them. The overall peak-to-peak amplitude of the RF waveform of the transmitted shear wave was recorded and plotted as a function of the transmitting transducer orientation. It was demonstrated experimentally that a single misoriented ply at the center of a 24-ply quasi-isotropic laminate can be detected with ease. Sensitivity to other errors in ply orientation and layup sequence have also been demonstrated.6 To continue the assessment of detection sensitivity, 48-ply graphite-epoxy laminates with and without intentional ply errors were fabricated. Azimuthal scans were performed to detect the errors and the results were quite successful, as described below