Reigniting the fire: a contemporary research agenda for social,political and nonprofit marketing

The paper reports on the core challenges faced by the nonprofit, political and social marketing disciplinary areas and suggests a series of research agendas to develop theory and practice to meet these challenges.

• Social marketing's research agenda involves the continued adaptation of the new developments in commercial marketing, whilst building a base of social marketing theory and best practice benchmarks that can be used to identify, clarify and classify the boundaries of social marketing against social change techniques.
• Nonprofit marketing is pursuing the dual research agenda of developing the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship whilst seeking deeper consumer‐based research to understand motivations for charitable behaviour and gift giving.
• Political Marketing's research agenda looks for an increase in the level of background research, core data and market research to use as a basis for developing more advanced theoretical and practical models. In addition, as political marketing is being transferred internationally between a range of political and electoral systems, there is a need for comparative research into both the relevance and effectiveness of these techniques to isolate nation independent and nation dependent political marketing strategies and campaigns.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ELECTRICITY TARIFFS: SOCIAL POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Abstract: The issue of equity in the provision of public utilities is one which has been the subject of a number of Australian studies over the past ten years. In particular, the obvious inequities in pricing between different classes of electricity consumers have attracted attention. Evidence that these inequities exist not only between, but also within, consumer classes was found in a survey of Brisbane residential electricity consumers. Significantly higher rates per kilowatt hour are paid by lower income consumers and the proportion of income spent on electricity is higher than that spent by the upper income households surveyed.
These inequities have important implications in the development of social policies, particularly those directed at the aged who, in many cases, rely on a low fixed income in the form of the old age pension. So far, in Australia, only the Victorian state government has approached this issue in any detail as a part of its Social Justice Strategy despite the fact that similar inequities in the provision of electricity to household consumers exist in all states.     

Are happy employees healthy employees? Researching the effects of employee engagement on absenteeism

Abstract: In 2007, a survey was conducted to measure the levels of workplace engagement for British Columbian civil servants. Following the Heskett et al. model of the “service profit chain” (1994, 2002), the government's primary concerns were the increasing attrition rates and their effects on service delivery. Essentially, the model demonstrated that employees who were more engaged were more committed to their work and more likely to stay within the civil service and that this culminated in improved customer service. Under the joint rubrics of absenteeism and job satisfaction, this study uses a construct of engagement (i.e., job satisfaction) to test whether different levels of engagement have any effect on the amount of sick time (absenteeism) an employee incurs. Specifically, the author looks at whether there is any correlation between the amount of sick time used and an individual's level of engagement and proposes that there is an inverse negative relationship: as job engagement increases, sick time used decreases. Testing the old adage “A happy employee is a healthy employee,” this research demonstrates that, though a more engaged employee may use less sick time, the differences in use between highly engaged employees and those not engaged are fairly marginal and that correlations are further confounded by a host of other (often missing) factors.     

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.     

European Parliament and Executive Federalism: Approaching a Parliament in a Semi-Parliamentary Democracy

Abstract: The European Parliament has often been understood along the lines of theories of European integration—compared to regular parliaments by Federalists or belittled as merely an international assembly by intergovernmentalists. This paper proposes an understanding of the European Parliament not along theories about what the EU should become, but what it is and surely will continue to be, that is a very distinct federal structure. The European Parliament is a parliament in an executive federalism—with far‐reaching consequences for its form and functions. After outlining the characteristics of this federal structure, these consequences will be demonstrated by analysing the European Parliament in contrast with two ideal types of parliaments: the working parliament, separated from the executive branch and centred around strong committees (like the US Congress), and the debating parliament, characterised by the fusion of parliamentary majority and government as well as plenary debates (like the British House of Commons). Dwelling thus on a comparison to a legislature in a non‐parliamentary federal system, like the US Congress, this paper argues that the European Parliament might best be understood as a special case of a working parliament. Finally, it will be proposed to consider the influence of executive federalism not only as fundamentally shaping the European Parliament but also as rendering the EU generally a semi‐parliamentary democracy.     

Tearing of knicker fabrics

In Dunedin (South Island, New Zealand), a sexual assault is reported to police approximately once every two to three weeks, with some reports fictitious. Identifying a fictitious claim is difficult, and damage to apparel, especially knickers, may be the only form of evidence. In this paper, the tear behaviour of three knit fabrics, typical of those used to manufacture knickers is reported: the effect of laundering prior to tearing was considered. Tearing behaviour was determined using an Instron universal testing machine (Model 4464) operating in tensile mode to eliminate variability which is inevitable with human participants. Cotton and cotton-rich fabrics were more difficult to tear than modal-rich fabrics: the addition of elastane increased the time for the tear initiation as elastane fibres allowed the fabric to extend more before breaking. Specimens behaved differently depending on which direction they were torn (course-direction specimens down the length of the specimen, wale-direction specimens 50% down the length, 50% across the specimen). Laundered fabrics required less force to tear than new fabrics, therefore, when examining torn apparel, the fibre content and age of the garment need to be considered. Torn fibre ends appeared similar to those damaged by other means (e.g. knife, screwdriver) and no features visible under FESEM could be attributed solely to tearing damage in the fabrics studied.     

Moving to Location Affordability? Housing Choice Vouchers and Residential Relocation in the Portland,Oregon, Region

Abstract

Location affordability measures a household’s combined cost of housing and transportation. Low-income households have the most to gain from housing with lower transportation costs. This research analyzes whether Housing Choice Voucher Program households—participants in a program designed to provide low-income households with a greater degree of housing choice—are able to choose housing that lowers their transportation costs in a metropolitan region with a compact, vital urban core. A mixed-methods approach is used to investigate the differences in location affordability and efficiency among 2,026 voucher recipients who moved within the Portland, Oregon, region during 2012–2013. Location mattered to movers, but in some unexpected ways. Urban movers relocated to less location efficient areas, whereas suburban movers’ location efficiency remained stable. In tight housing markets, voucher holders may be edged out of location-efficient neighborhoods and thus incur increased transportation costs.     

Debating the ghost of Marshall: a critique of citizenship

Significant changes to societies and the jettisoning of social rights are limiting access to conventional citizenship and fueling a new criterion by which a substantive ‘citizenship’ may now be claimed. Specifically, fame, fortune and a kind of martyrdom are, de facto, the new ways in which an individualistic approach is used to access citizenship, initiating a two-tiered system of inclusion. This article uses a Canadian context to examine the relevance of Marshall's concept of citizenship. The argument will follow in four parts. First, I review Marshall's construct of social rights and take up some of the ‘internal’ critiques of its limits. Second, I examine the gendered limits of social citizenship claims. Third, I explore what amounts to an ‘external’ critique of Marshall, i.e. thinkers like Beck who argue that the debate has moved on from how to do ‘social rights’ to an attack on the very notion of (social) rights. Finally, I propose what a citizenship without social rights concretely amounts to in the modern world.     

The Clinical and Adaptive Features of Young Offenders with Histories of Child-Parent Violence

This study compared the clinical and adaptive features of juvenile offenders (N = 223) who were violent towards their parents (CPV) with those who had no history of violence against their parents (NCPV). These two groups were also examined on demographic data, arrest findings, mental health issues, relationship findings, intellectual abilities, and school performance. Youths in the CPV group were more likely to (a) associate with peers who own guns, (b) affiliate with gang members, (c) belong to a gang, (d) have been psychiatrically hospitalized and medicated, (e) have attempted suicide, (f) come from a non-intact home, and (g) have trouble relating to their parents and other household members. The CPV group also committed a greater number of nondomestic violent offenses, while those in the NCPV group committed a greater number of property offenses. Analyses revealed no significant group differences on the Emotional Symptom Index and Personal Adjustment Composite of the Behavior Assessment System for Children; however, interaction effects were detected by gender and race.