Modifiable determinants of youth violence in Australia and the United States : a longitudinal study

Youth violence is a global problem. Few studies have examined whrther the prevalence or predictors of youth violence are similar in comparable Western countries like Australia and the United States (US). In the current article, analyses are conducted using two waves of data collected as part of a longitudinal study of adolescent development in approximately 4,000 students aged 12 to 16 years in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, US. Students completed a self-report survey of problem behaviours including violent behaviour, as well as risk and protective factors across five domains (individual, family, peer, school, community). Compared to Washington State, rates of attacking or beating another over the past 12 months were lower in Victoria for females in the first survey and higher for Victorian males in the follow-up survey. Preliminary analyses did not show state-specific predictors of violent behaviour. In the final multivariate analyses of the combined Washington State and Victorian samples, protective factors were being female and student emotion control. Risk factors were prior violent behaviour, family conflict, association with violent peers, community disorganisation, community norms favourable to drug use, school suspensions and arrests. Given the similarity of influential factors in North America and Australia, application of US early intervention and prevention programs may be warranted, with some tailoring to the Australian context.

Burnout in physicians : a case for peer-support

Background: It is well documented that doctors experience a high level of stress in their profession, and that this can lead to physical, psychological, and emotional harm, in particular, burnout. Overseas (especially in the UK and USA), research investigating the levels of stress, burnout, and associated psychiatric morbidity in health professionals, across many specialities, has been carried out with a view to prevention of these adverse outcomes.

Aims: To assess the level of burnout in a sample of New Zealand physicians, the associated work and personal characteristics, and the need for development of a support peer supervision or support system.

Methods: Questionnaires that measured a number of work and personal characteristics, including the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the General Health Questionnaire, and additional questions regarding mistakes, and need for support, were sent to 83 physicians in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty areas. Analysis involved descriptive statistics, with t-tests for comparison with other studies, Pearson Product-Moment correlations between variables and analysis of variance where appropriate.

Results: Of the 50 respondents, 28% experienced high levels of two or three aspects of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, low personal accomplishment). Emotional exhaustion correlated with a greater need for support. Most respondents favoured a one-to-one support system.

Conclusion: This study highlights the presence of significant workplace difficulties for physicians and the need to develop a preventative support system for the protection of physicians and the patients in their care.

Little boys : the potency of peer culture in shaping masculinities

This study explores the peer group understandings of five male friends between the ages of six and eight years and seeks to examine the ways in which the group’s social dynamics interact to define, regulate and maintain dominant and collective understandings of masculinities. Within a self-selected affinity context, and drawing on their lived and imagined experiences, the boys’ enact and interpret their social worlds. Adopting the principles of ethnography within a framework of feminist poststructuralism and drawing on theories of ‘groupness’ and gender(ed) embodiment, the boys’ understandings of masculinities are captured and interpreted. The key analytic foci are directed towards examining the role of power in the social production of collective schoolboy knowledges, and understanding the processes through which boys subjectify and are subjectified, through social but also bodily discourses. The boys’ constructions of peer group masculinities are (re)presented through a narrative methodology which foregrounds my interpretation of the group’s personal and social relevances and seeks to be inductive in ways that ‘bring to life’ the boys’ stories. The study illuminates the potency of peer culture in shaping and regulating the boys’ dominant understandings of masculinity. Within this culture strong essentialist and hierarchical values are imported to support a range of gender(ed) and sexual dualisms. Here patriarchal adult culture is regularly mimicked and distorted. Underpinned by constructions of ‘femininity’ as the negative ‘other’, dominant masculinities are embodied, cultivated and championed through physical dominance, physical risk, aggression and violence. Through feminist poststructural analysis which enables a theorising of the boys’ subjectivities as fluid, tenuous and often characterised by contradiction and resistance, there exists a potential for interrupting and re-working particular masculinities. Within this framework, more affirmative but equally legitimate understandings and embodiments can be explored. The study presents a warrant for working with early childhood affinity groups to disrupt and contest the dominance and hierarchy of peer culture in an effort to counter-act broader gendered and heterosexist global, state and institutional structures. Framing these assertions is an understanding of the peer context as not only self-limiting and productive of hierarchies, but enabling and generative of affirmative subjectivities.

Managerial ownership concentration and agency conflict using logistic regression approach : evidence from Bursa Malaysia

This paper adopted logistic regression model to examine the relationship between level of managerial ownership concentration and agency conflict which are proxied by level of risk, firms leverage and firms dividend policy. The study covers a period of 5 years from 1997 through 2001. The study is based on the 100 blue-chip stocks, majority of which are derived from CI components. The findings suggest a positive and significant association between level of level of risk at lower level and managerial ownership while a negative and significant association is also evidenced between risk at higher level and managerial ownership concentration. While debt policy which serves as positive monitoring substitute for agency conflict is found to be positive and significant explaining the level of ownership concentration. Furthermore, dividend policies, which also serve as monitoring, substitute to reduce agency conflict between manager and external shareholders do not appear to have any significant impact on managerial ownership. On the other hand, the level of institutional ownership, which serves as external monitoring force, is found to have inverse impact on level of managerial ownership concentration. This is marginally significant at 10 level (p=.12). The findings, in part explain the argument that the managerial ownership help reduce agency conflict between outside equity holders and managers.

Conflict management : the team New Zealand case

The primary subject matter of this case is the effectiveness of risk management strategies associated with the staging of a major international sporting event. A secondary issue examined in the case concerns the proprietary rights of employers to the intellectual capital and skills acquired by employees. The case requires an understanding of strategic risk management and good corporate governance principles.

This case has a difficulty level that makes it most suitable for senior level students in a Corporate Governance/Business Ethics course. The case is designed to be taught in three class hours and would require about eight hours of out-of-class time which includes reading the case material and the articles listed in the references.

Conflict of interest in policing and the public sector

Conflicts of interest are a key factor in the contemporary decline of trust in government and public institutions, eroding public trust in government and democratic systems. Drawing on two unique empirical studies involving policing and the broader public sector, this paper explores the meaning and dimensions of conflict of interest by examining public complaints about conflict of interest and providing distinctive insights into the nature of conflict of interest as a problem for public sector ethics. The paper analyses and explores appropriate regulatory and management approaches for conflict of interest, focusing on three elements: (1) dealing with private interests that are identifiably problematic in the way they clash with the duties of public officials; (2) managing conflicts as they arise in the course of public sector work (manifested in preferential and adverse treatment, and other problematic areas); and (3) developing ethical and accountable organisational cultures. It is concluded that effective and meaningful public sector ethics in the pursuit of the public interest must be based on an ethos of social accountability and a commitment to prioritise the public interest in both fact and appearance.