What difference can they make? Assessing the social impact of corporate codes of practice

As retailers in the North increasingly adopt codes of practice containing social and/or environmental provisions in global supply chains, there is a need for rigorous assessment of their social impact. Moving beyond the rhetoric, it is important to establish the actual impact of such codes on poorer workers, their families, and other local stakeholders. This paper sets out the key methodological and conceptual issues arising in such an assessment as identified by a three-year study on the South African wine industry. It reviews the different motivations and approaches employed by code bodies, donors, academics, and practitioners, and highlights the lack of workers' voices in the debate on corporate responsibility as well as some of the early research findings. Finally, it explains how the inherent power inequalities in global supply chains make it more difficult to adopt a truly empowering approach to assessing the impact of codes of practice.     

Chinese Communication Styles

正China has become an economic superpower,but that success is not contingent on Chinese businessmen,government officials,and other elites on having assimilated into a Western style of communication.There are still vast differences in the ways in which Chinese interact with Western people,and with the world at large.Significantly,the primary function of Chinese communication strategy     

Discretion drift in primary care commissioning in England: Towards a conceptualization of hybrid accountability obligations

In the context of welfare delivery, hybrid organizations mix public and ‘new’ market, social, and professional types of mechanisms and rationales. This article contributes to our understanding of accountability within hybrid organizations by highlighting how accountability obligations can become hybrid, simultaneously formal and informal. Instead of seeing accountability as hybrid only in the sense of the coexistence of types of organizational mechanisms and structures (i.e., the prevalence of both state and market types), we examine accountability arrangements governing a hybrid model—primary care commissioning in England—and interrogate the relationships between accountability actors and their accountability forums. We conceptualize ‘hybrid accountability obligations’ as a state whereby the nature of obligation underpinning accountability relationships is both formal-informal and vertical-horizontal concurrently. The article concludes by highlighting the consequences of this kind of hybridity, namely how it extended discretion from welfare delivery to the domain of welfare governance.     

The impact of administrative stringency on applications for the old age assistance program in new jersey

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of stricter eligibility enforcement on the flow of applications of the Old Age Assistance (OAA) Program in New Jersey.

Most of the previous research in the welfare area has focused entirely on explaining measures of the stock demand for public assistance. Higher claim denial rates may affect the stock demand by deterring those potential recipients with less legitimate claims. However, there is also a strictly mechanical relationship such that a claim period t or in state i reduces, pari passu, the stock demand in period t or in state i below the level that would have prevailed in the absence of the denial. Thus, if the objective is to isolate a deterence effect, it seems more appropriate to examine the impact of previous recent denial rates on the flow of new applications for public assistance. A time series of monthly applications for OAA in New Jersey are related to lagged values of the denial rate of such applications, cyclical activity, seasonal factors and trend. The results suggest that stricter enforcement of eligibility rules does deter future claims.     

Commission newsletter: Winter 1982

W?adys?aw Czapliński (ed): The Polish Parliament at the Summit of Its Development (16th ‐ 17th Centuries): Anthologies (Polish Historical Library, no. 6, Marian Biskup ed.). (Zaklad Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich, Wroc?aw, 1985; pp. 214; ISBN 83 04 01861 6; pb, z? 200).

Ulrich Lange: Landtag und Ausschuß. Zum Problem der Handlungsfähigkeit landständischer Versammlungen im Zeitalter der Entstehung des frühmodernen Staates. Die weifischen Territorien als Beispiel (1500–1629). (Hildesheim: Lax, 1986). 278 pp. (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen XXIV: Untersuchungen zur Ständegeschichte Niedersachscns. Bd. 6. DM.68).

Gerhard A. Ritter (Transl. Kim Traynor): Social Welfare in Germany and Britain: Origins and Development, (Berg Publishers, Leamington Spa and New York, ISBN 0–907582–49–4 xi, 300pp. £30; 1986).     

Offense Type as Determinant of Revenge and Forgiveness After Victimization: Adolescents’ Responses to Injustice and Aggression

Victims of injustice and aggression may have strong feelings about the perpetrator(s) that may impede their efforts to cope with the victimizing experience. We examined to what extent adolescents’ interpersonal responses to victimization in terms of revenge and forgiveness depend on offense type. Of 455 Dutch students from various educational levels, 379 participants reported being victimized by incidents of injustice, aggression, or violence. These incidents were categorized according to type and related to respondents’ self-reported revenge, avoidance, and benevolence toward the perpetrator. Victims of criminal offenses (physical and sexual violence, theft, and threat) reported less forgiving motivations than victims of noncriminal transgressions (bullying, ostracism, and other forms of indirect aggression). Sexual violence primarily elicited avoidance, rather than revenge. Gender differences in responses to victimization depended on offense type, too. Hence, to enhance our knowledge about revenge and forgiveness after victimization, future studies may need to take offense characteristics into account.     

Science in the Jury Box: Jurors’ Comprehension of Mitochondrial DNA Evidence

Questions about how jurors understand and apply scientific evidence were addressed in a mock jury study in which 480 jury pool members watched a videotaped mock trial that included expert testimony about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evidence purportedly linking a defendant to a crime. Collectively, jurors showed moderately good comprehension of the mtDNA evidence, although some made definitional and inferential errors. Comprehension was better among jurors with higher educational attainment and more mathematics and science courses. Lower comprehension was associated with jurors’ reservations about science and concerns about the contamination of mtDNA evidence. The results suggest that most jurors are capable of comprehending and employing scientific evidence presented during trial, although errors and doubts about the evidence should be anticipated.     

Examining context-specific perceptions of risk: exploring the utility of “human-in-the-loop” simulation models for criminology

Objectives  

To utilize a “human-in-the-loop” simulation methodology to examine the impact of high-risk environmental contexts on perceptions of victimization risk.     

A survey of paint flakes on the clothing of persons suspected of involvement in crime

A survey was undertaken to determine the background level of paint flakes on the clothing of persons suspected of involvement in crime. The debris from 100 garments submitted for casework examination was studied and paint flakes recovered where present. Seventy two percent of garments bore one or more flakes. A total of 703 flakes were recovered; size, topcoat colour, and number and colour of any under-layers were recorded for each. The distribution of paint flakes on clothing surfaces and in pockets was also noted. Results were compared with the previously published survey of Pearson, May and Dabbs (1971). This survey provides scientists with an updated data set for reference when considering the strength of paint evidence.