Is technological innovativeness one behavior or many?

A major criticism of research on technological innovation is the inconsistency of findings across studies. One explanation for this inconsistency may be the multiple conceptualizations of innovation used in the literature. In this study, four behaviors of innovativeness are reviewed. Factors affecting each behavior are then empirically examined indicating that the behaviors result from different factors. To ensure that future research does not simply create mini-theories of different aspects of innovation, a schema for integrating the different conceptualizations is proposed. Results of an illustrative analysis using this schema is then presented.     

Getting Tough With Juvenile Offenders: Ignoring the Best Interests of the Child

Abstract Despite a declining delinquency rate, legislatures and courts are getting tough with juveniles. Such policies are antithetical to the “best interest of the child” philosophy and counter-productive to treatment. Protecting the child's rights to due process and individualized treatment must be enhanced, not subverted. The laws which govern the behavior of citizens, companies, institutions, and various other elements in our society are man-made. “Public policy is whatever governments choose to do or not to do.”¹ However, these decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are ultimately made by the confluence of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the government that are, and of necessity must be, at least tangentially responsive to perceived public needs. “Courts respond … to societal pressures; they are moved by the same tides of public opinion as are legislatures and executives.”² The resultant public policies and the programs created to administer them reflect these societal needs and respond to them accordingly. The evolution of the Children's Code in America, its eventual adoption into law and its subsequent changes over the years mark these shifts in society's view of its children. Throughout this slow and sometimes grudging process, the legal status of children has made numerous gains. Today, children hold a special place in our culture and until recently, the Children's Code was utilized to assist them in maintaining and enhancing that status. However, within the last few years this tide of evolutionary gains has turned into a flood of erosion of due process rights. Yet:     

Leading change through collaborative partnerships: a profile of leadership and capacity among local public health leaders

Collaborative partnerships have grown in prominence as vehicles for systems change and organizational development among a network of organizations, particularly in the complex field of public health. Likewise, supporting the functioning and effectiveness of collaborative partnerships has become a key interest among organizational development scholars and community psychologists alike. In the question of capacity-building, no aspect of collaborative capacity has received greater attention than that of leadership. Research on collaborative partnerships has highlighted the importance of shared leadership while at the same time acknowledging that specific individuals do and often must emerge and assume more prominent roles in the partnership in order for the work of the partnership to move forward. However, we have limited knowledge of these key individuals and the roles that they play in non-hierarchical, voluntary partnerships. The present study is a comparative case study of prominent leaders in three regional public health partnerships. The aim of this investigation is to explore the questions: (1) What does it mean to be a leader in a context where no one is "in charge?" (2) What roles do those individuals identified as leaders play?, and (3) What are the specific capacities that enable the enactment of these roles? We find that those viewed as leaders by their partnerships shared a similar profile both in the range and types of roles they play and the capacities that enable them to carry out these roles. Further, we find that while individual attributes such as passion, knowledge, and leadership skills are important, some of the most prominent capacities are rooted in the organizational and institutional contexts within which the leader is nested.     

Party Elites' Perceptions of Voters and Public Opinion

Given the vast amounts of research on party competition, party strategy, political communication and electoral campaigning, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the study of national party elites' perceptions of voters and public opinion. This article argues that the mindset of leading party officials, and more specifically their perceptions of voter and public opinion rationality, driving forces and knowledge, is a much‐neglected explanation for why parties adopt the electoral strategies they do. Analysed here are unique internal party documents from two Swedish parties during the period 1964 to 1991: the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. A simple analytic framework is proposed for the study of party elite perceptions of voters and public opinion. In contrast to the overwhelmingly pessimistic view of voter rationality that still prevails in contemporary research, the findings presented in this article suggest that national party elites in general have had a surprisingly positive view of voters and, in particular, public opinion. Perceptions of voters and public opinion were largely unaffected by the parties' electoral fortunes, and did not become gloomier over time.     

Media evolution and public understanding of climate science

This paper employs public opinion data from a nationally representative probability sample to examine how information encounters and exposure to different media sources relate to individuals' beliefs about global warming. The analyses indicate that media source exposure (i.e., exposure to news and information about science presented through different media outlets), intentional information exposure (i.e., deliberate exposure to global warming news coverage), and inadvertent information exposure (i.e., unplanned exposure to news and information about science that is encountered online while searching for other forms of information) relate to beliefs about global warming, in significant and meaningful ways. Namely, the findings show that both intentional information exposure and inadvertent online information exposure associate with disbelief in human-made causes, catalysts, and consequences of global warming. Theoretical and social implications of the findings are discussed and contextualized in light of the rapidly evolving media environment.