Midwifery: a profession in transition

This paper presents the findings of a pilot study carried out in one regional center in Queensland, Australia. The study aimed to develop a snapshot image of teenage mothers. Of the thirty mothers who participated; just over half (16/30; 53%) reported using contraceptives, less than a third (8/30; 27%) used condoms to protect themselves from STDs and the majority (23/30; 77%) said their pregnancy was unplanned. Despite this, 16 (53%) attended prenatal classes, 16 (53%) breast-fed their infants and 27 (90%) were satisfied with motherhood. On average the fathers were almost four years older than the mother were (range 17 to 29 years), most fathers (23/30; 77%) were not teenagers themselves and only 11 (37%) were resident fathers following the birth of the baby. Exploratory analysis suggests that the fathers were significantly older than the teenage mothers were (t=−6.73, df 29, p=0.0001). Although these preliminary results are similar to those reported in the American literature further research is needed to confirm if the findings presented are representative of teenage mothers in Australia. While we await the results of future studies, practitioners are encouraged to continue to educate young women about appropriate and safer sexual practices.

From efficiency to effectiveness :a new management model of social inclusion

This paper challenges the tendency in the contemporary management literature to conceptualize management within a micro-framework that focuses on short-term efficiency and privatized economic gain. Based on a literature review of social-relation theories, we propose a new management model of social inclusion for general management across contexts with a particular concern for profit-for organizations. The model conceptualizes management within a systemic societal framework where its effectiveness is demonstrated for society, organizations, groups and individuals.  We suggest that management based on the collectivistic values of shared humanity and social inclusion (not only organization) is expected to reduce management-led systematic marginalization in the workplace and social whole. For the purpose of this paper, we define management as “mutually interdependent activities that add value to individuals’, groups’, organizations’ and societal wellbeing by ensuring social inclusion at each of these dimensions.” We term this management process ‘Management Process of Social Inclusion’ as it extends management perspectives to not only organizational effectiveness but societal effectiveness. The paper concludes by proposing several propositions and implications for future research.

Beyond the road : Beat writing and its socio-cultural contexts

This study looks at the contribution of Beat Generation writers to the post-World-War II reinvigoration of the American literary tradition. It challenges the reductive judgements of many critics and demonstrates that the Beat phenomenon was as much an expression of its historical moment as a rebellion against it.

Ethnography of housing

This paper is the final report of a research project spanning three years, exploring three field locations and capturing the stories of forty (plus) housing workers. Using an ethnographic research approach, this paper provides an account of how housing workers use language and stories to make sense of their challenging and changing work. First hand accounts ('stories') about everyday housing work frame the data in this paper, explaining how housing workers in Victoria have experienced and made sense of the shift from public housing as 'affordable housing for the working poor' to 'housing of last resort for the most vulnerable and needy members of the community'. Using a number of composite stories, this paper provides the reader with a glimpse into the work of public housing staff, transporting the reader from the relativley static world of policy and procedure to the more colourful world of tenants with ' high and complex' needs, 'wicked' problems, weary staff and the daily reality of organisational change.

A unique feature of this research is the comparison of how different workers use their stories to build a range of 'socially constructed realities' around the housing work and its wicked problems. With a few exceptions (Saugeres, 1999, Howe, 1998, Clapham et al., 2000, Darcy, 1999) the voices of frontline staff are largley absent from contemporary housing literature. In this paper, I use the stories of frontline staff to build a comparative case study of the socially constructed realities for frontline staff and the corresponding realities of the managers at head office (and vice versa). This 'same problem, different perspective' approach allows the reader to better understand how the same problem is understood and approached in different ways, depending on the individual's organisational role, responsibility and authority. Using stories about 'working with problem tenants', 'collecting rental arrears from the poor and marginalised', maintaining old, neglected properties' and 'coping with organisational change', this paper illustrates how the shifting (and sometimes contradictory) construction of housing problems has meant that the organisation has long struggled to devise and implement sustainable remedies to these problems.

The following pages describe how the problem identified in the Housing Office Review (and experienced in the daily work of the 'modern day' housing worker) are simply a contemporary manifestation of  'age old public housing issues'. This paper describes and explains how housing staff have long used narrative to make sense of their often difficult work and ultimately, how they understand and experience a major process of operational policy change associated with the shift from 'public' housing to 'welfare' housing.

'Very inflated rhetoric polysyllables and so on': the public intellectual and jargon in the academy

The public intellectual, by their very definition, aims to reach a large sector of the public or publics. This requires proficiency, or at least the capacity to communicate in a variety of forms. As a large proportion of the public, to which the public intellectual appeals, is an online or cyber public, the importance of blogs in a computer-literate public cannot be under-estimated. The immediacy of the blog and the way in which an online presence facilitates immediate communication between the public and the public intellectual through the posting of comments online allow for a broad recognition of the intellectual in the public arena. My arguments will hinge on my interviews with contemporary American public intellectuals (Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Todd Gitlin, Camille Paglia and Stephen Greenblatt) and their views on communication in a society experiencing a decline in the publication of print media.

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian Novels as an Early Paradigm of Racial Toleration

The Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) provide an early paradigm of racial toleration by displacing the heterogeneous race conflicts of the U. S. to an interplanetary location. There, the protagonist John Carter, representing Burroughs himself, introduces a level of racial acceptance and integration almost unheard of on the Earth of that era (the early twentieth century).

Avaliação de resultados em RH: análise dos métodos propostos na literatura acadêmica

A avaliação de resultados em RH tem sido proposta por diversos autores nos últimos anos. As propostas diferem quanto à forma de mensuração da contribuição da área para o desempenho da organização e quanto ao conteúdo do que se propõe, efetivamente, mensurar. Essas divergências refletem, em grande medida, as premissas adotadas em relação ao papel que a área desempenha (ou deveria desempenhar). Esses métodos de avaliação e mensuração são também alvo de inúmeras críticas (Pfeffer, 1997). Levando-se em conta a diversidade de propostas para a avaliação e mensuração, as observações de Pfeffer (1997) e a escassez de trabalhos sobre o tema na literatura brasileira, este trabalho faz um levantamento e análise das propostas encontradas na literatura para avaliação e mensuração de resultados da área de RH.

Sexual blinging of women : Alice Walker's african character tashi and issue of female genital cutting

This thesis provides a reading of the different forms of representation that can be attributed to the character Tashi, the protagonist of the novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), written by the African American writer Alice Walker. Before this work Tashi had already appeared in two previous novels by Walker, first, in The Color Purple (1982) and then, as a mention, in The Temple of My Familiar (1989). With Tashi, the author introduces the issue of female circumcision, a ritual Tashi submits herself to at the beginning of her adult life. The focus of observation lies in the ways in which the author’s anger is transformed into a means of creative representation. Walker uses her novel Possessing the Secret of Joy openly as a political instrument so that the expression “female mutilation” (term used by the author) receives ample attention from the media and critics in general. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate to what extent Walker’s social engagement contributes to the development of her work and to what extent it undermines it. For the analysis of the different issues related to “female genital cutting”, the term I use in this thesis, the works of feminist critics and writers such as Ellen Gruenbaum, Lightfoot-Klein, Nancy Hartsock, Linda Nicholson, Efrat Tseëlon and the Egyptian writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi will be consulted. I hope that this thesis can contribute as an observation about Alice Walker’s use of her social engagement in the creation of her fictional world.

Acumulação de competências tecnológicas e suas implicações para performance operacional: análise comparativa de duas empresas do grupo Lupatec em Caxias do Sul - RS

This work focuses on the implications of accumulation of technological competences for improvement of operational performance indicators. This relationship is examined in two mechanical industry firms in Caxias do Sul-RS, in the period 1985-2000. Based on a comparative case study, this work finds its ground in both qualitative and quantitative empirical evidences, collected in different sources in the firms, which are being studied. The examination of accumulation of technological competences is done through a structure of analysis existing in literature, which is specifically adapted to the mechanical industry. The examination of performance improvement is based on a set of typical operational indicators pertaining to mechanical industry. Studies of this nature are already found, mainly in Latin American literature, since the eighties. But, the application of these analytic structures in industrializing firms in Brazil is found only in the nineties. This work shows that within a unique enterprise group there is a different accumulation of technological competences, and it demonstrates that this process is not automatic. Moreover, it contributes to explain not only the differences between both firms, in terms of operational performance at some points in time, but also, how both firms got to (or did not get to) improve their performance indicators along time. This conclusion is not different from that of previous studies, but it derives from a study made in a specific industry (mechanical), which has not yet been studied in the south of Brazil.

O estrategista brasileiro da micro, pequena e média empresa privada nacional

The leadership of American literature in the field of business strategy and its consequent influence on the scientific and entrepreneurial world in Brazil is a real fact. It's also true that the major theories in strategy, especially from the classic school, the oldest and most influent in this field, were originated from empirical studies in large ¿ if not giant ¿ companies, many of them currently present in Brazil. The micro, small and medium Brazilian companies, of well known social and economical importance to the country, and its strategists are certainly not inert to this knowledge, but it doesn¿t necessarily means it can be applied with success in such different context. Previous studies indicate that this strategist makes use of intuition and is not very friendly with bureaucratic controls, but, in reality, the profile of this Brazilian executive is still unknown. Naturally, we do not expect this profile to be static in time, but reactive to changes on business environment, especially with the current globalization process. This research, aiming at knowing the profile of the Brazilian strategist of micro, small and medium companies and through an intensive revision on strategy literature, has built a mathematical model by the use of factor analysis, that can be applied in future studies. A new typology to understand the strategic thinking of these leaders is proposed. The conclusion shows that, for the executives in this research, intuition is not predominant on their decisions. Although more rational than intuitive, they refuse the idea of being purely rational. Besides, in the strategy formation process, they tend to have a collective spirit rather than deciding alone and to believe in the importance of being formal, planning and registering their intentions.

A autonomia patrimonial na empresa individual de responsabilidade limitada (EIRELI)

O presente trabalho pretende demonstrar que o real avanço com o advento da previsão legal da empresa individual de responsabilidade limitada – EIRELI é a proteção conferida pela autonomia patrimonial e não a limitação da responsabilidade do comerciante. Visto que há uma escassez na literatura nacional a respeito do tema, iremos utilizar bibliografia norte americana como base para a primeira parte da pesquisa. Assim poderemos identificar as vantagens e desvantagens da responsabilidade limitada e da autonomia patrimonial para podermos concluir com uma análise de custo e benefício destes institutos jurídicos. Por fim, utilizaremos do conhecimento adquirido por toda esta análise para aplicarmos e adaptarmos as especificações da EIRELI. Nos apoiaremos em doutrina nacional somente em relação as regras de sociedades limitadas, pois a lei determina que estas serão usadas supletivamente para as empresas individuais de responsabilidade limitada. Com base nisso o trabalho será finalizado com uma questão pouco explorada, que é em relação a penhora e liquidação das quotas na EIRELI.