Religious Attendance and Volunteering: Testing National Culture as a Boundary Condition

Numerous studies have documented the importance of religion, and especially of religious congregational attendance, in regard to volunteering. Most of these studies focus on individual and contextual factors, usually within one country. Recent studies suggest that the association between religious attendance and volunteering varies among countries. We hypothesize that national culture plays an important role in explaining volunteering mainly as a moderator of the relationship between religious attendance and volunteering, especially on volunteering to help people in need. To support this position, we used individual‐level data from the World Values Survey (WVS) coupled with national data on cultural measures. This enabled assessment of these relationships using a multilevel analysis of individuals nested in countries. We used two models of national culture, Hofstede (1984) and WVS to explain the differences between countries. We found direct relationships between national culture constructs (power distance and survival/self‐expression values) and volunteering. We also found that individualism, power distance, and survival/self‐expression values moderated the effect of religion on volunteering, with a stronger relationship between religious attendance and volunteering in nationalities with self‐expression values, high power distance, and low individualism. Theoretical and practical implications of this approach are discussed.     

组织文化预览对企业并购绩效的影响

在Weber和Camerer实验范式的基础上,基于真实并购预览概念提出了组织文化并购预览,通过实验室模拟研究探索了组织文化预览对并购后绩效的影响。结果表明:(1)组织文化预览对提高并购后组织绩效有积极作用,其中双向组织文化预览对改善并购后的整体绩效以及主、并双方各自的绩效都有显著的积极作用,而单向组织文化预览未显示出显著的积极影响;(2)组织文化预览可能主要起效于并购后初期,在并购后短期内对整合组织文化有积极促进作用,利于并购后的快速整合。实验结果为组织文化预览在企业并购整合中的应用提供了理论依据和实证支持。     

Catholic Priests and the Political Order: The Political Behavior of Catholic Pastors

A nationwide mail survey of Catholic priests is analyzed with respect to their political behavior in the presidential election of 2000. Priests exhibit a slight tendency to self-identify as political liberals, and a strong tendency to identify with the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, Bill Clinton won a very narrow victory over Bob Dole among priests in 1996, and George W. Bush trounced Al Gore among Catholic clergy in 2000. My analysis suggests that support for Gore was motivated by concern for hunger and poverty among Catholic priests, while support for Bush was driven primarily by priestly opposition to abortion. Political participation among priests was predicted by the importance attached to social justice concerns, and by congruence between the social and economic views of each priest and his congregation.     

The Information Behavior of Catholic Women Discerning a Vocation to Religious Life

Approximately 10% of Roman Catholic women seriously discern a vocation to religious life during their lifetime. Spiritual discernment is often characterized by prayer and spiritual direction, but also the acquisition of knowledge and information about religious life. No study to date has sought to understand how women seek out and retrieve information about religious life. Therefore, the current study sought to answer the following research question: “what is the information-seeking behavior (ISB) of Catholic women discerning a vocation to religious life?” using Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology. A survey was administered online and yielded responses from 124 participants. Findings indicated that digital and print resources were heavily utilized. However, participants indicated that connecting with a person face-to-face and visiting religious sisters produced a kind of knowledge and information that could not be acquired online, suggesting that their ISB was an integration of digital and print resources and human connection. This study contributes to the literature by intersecting the disciplines of information science and religion to equip practitioners who seek to develop resources for them. The study introduces the concept of limited Internet effectiveness in order to understand the integration of digital versus in-person resources in spiritual religious processes.     

From Excommunication to Nullification: Testing and Extending Supply-Side Theories of Religious Marketing with the Case of Catholic Marital Annulments

Since the Second Vatican Council (1965), Catholic marital annulments have risen dramatically, especially in the United States. A comparison of American and international rates demonstrates that, consistent with supply-side theories of religion, annulment rates have risen only in countries where the Church competes with other religious institutions. However, supply-side theory cannot explain why the American rate is double that of other countries with competitive religious economies. Historical analysis suggests that the growing number, estrangement, organization, and mobilization of divorced American Catholics motivated the American Church to engage in more intense marketing of annulments. I therefore argue that another variable that incorporates these "qualities of the target market" should be considered in future analyses of religious marketing.     

Religious Service Attendance and Religious and Secular Organizational Engagement in the United Kingdom

The study uses nationally representative data to examine whether the moral freighting Putnam and Campbell (2010) propose, based on American experiences, may apply to overall British society. Specifically, it tests whether religious service attendance increases religious or secular organizational activities, possibly due to moral freighting that encourages religious congregants to practice their faith, transcending ego boundaries and self-interest. It is also necessary to determine if engagement in religious or secular organizational activities elevates the degree of religious service attendance, thus forming a bidirectional association. The study employs the maximum likelihood-structural equation modeling (ML-SEM) method to verify the proposed reciprocity. The empirical tests confirm that a synergistic reciprocal relationship is established between religious service attendance and religious organizational engagement, and that religious service attendance increases secular organizational engagement. However, secular organizational engagement does not make a bidirectional contribution to religious service attendance.     

Organizational Revivalism: Explaining Metamorphosis of China's Catholic Church

The classical works of Troelsch and Niebuhr suggested that sect movements had been the origin of reform and revitalization of the church. More recently, Finke and Wittberg supplemented that thesis by suggesting that the Catholic Church was able to reform itself not through the sect development, but through the establishment of religious orders within the Catholic Church itself. This article suggests, from historical and contemporary archival sources, that the revitalization of the Catholic Church in China was through indigenization of the Church. The vitalization has been achieved despite tensions between the underground church committed to Rome and the national church, which advocated self-government without political and financial ties to the Catholic hierarchies outside China. Both the Chinese government's accommodation of the ecclesiastical authority of the papacy, and the Vatican's silence in response to the underground church's pleas to disregard the national church, had helped the indigenization process and the growth of the church without a possible schism.     

宗教文化融合研究三题 以人类学的视角

从普通民众的社会生活实践出发去观察和研究宗教,我们会看到一种现象,即中国各民族的宗教至少由两种不同系统混合组成:一种是在特殊的自然人文环境中形成并与本土文化浑然一体的,如自然     

Catholic Women Religious Vocations in the Twentieth Century: The Slovenian Case

In the twentieth century, female monasticism in Slovenia enjoyed a dynamic period. In this paper, I present changes in numerical trends for the whole century and explore the broader social circumstances and conditions that influenced the dynamics of this phenomenon. The basic thesis is that the numbers of members of religious orders change depending on the manner in which monasticism is structured in the economic, political and cultural life of a certain society. The major part of the discussion focuses on the first half of the century, which saw the greatest growth. In comparing the Slovenian statistical regions, I found that the majority of women members came from regions in which the demographic imbalance favoring women over men and the influence of the Catholic Church on everyday life were the greatest. In Slovenia, the decline in female religious vocations started after WWII and, especially until the second Vatican Council, was part of a manifest secularization process rooted in political change. The numerical trend in Slovenian female monasticism differs from West European and USA trends; therefore, a different approach and explanation was needed. This enabled me to re-think the social circumstances and position of Catholic orders in Slovenian society.     

Religious Symbols and the WISC-R Performance of Roman Catholic Junior High School Students

Abstract

Susan Isaacs. Intellectual Growth in Young Children. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930. Pp. xi+370. $4.00.     

Catholic Religious Orders of Women in China: Adaptation and Power

Although sociologists have argued that religious orders fulfill the same creative functions within Catholicism that sectarian groups perform for Protestantism, no research has examined whether the orders can serve this function in non-Western societies where Catholics are a minority. This article examines Catholic religious orders of women in mainland China today. Both internal and external factors prevent Chinese sisters from gaining the power and autonomy they would need to serve as change agents in the Chinese Catholic Church. The effectiveness of external attempts to ameliorate the sisters' difficulties is evaluated.     

On Becoming a Religious Therapist in Chinese Culture

Pastoral Psychology - This essay will present an approach to psychotherapy in China that emerges out of Chinese literature and theology. We refer to it as Zhi Mian (i.e., facing life directly)...     

Organizational Change: The Role of Organizational Culture and Organizational Learning

Recent findings suggest that organizational culture and learning impact organizational performances. We report the results of an organizational change program focused upon strengthening further productivity in a public sector organization. The findings suggest that systematic and structured programs that include specific organizational goals, performance measures, performance feedback mechanisms, and incentives yield enhancements of targeted organizational performances. We present guidelines to promote organizational change and suggest that perceived collective efficacy plays an important role in changing organizational culture.

     

The Child's Conception of His Religious Denomination II: The Catholic Child

Abstract

Cattell, R. B. Factor Analysis: An Introduction and Manual for the Psychologist and Social Scientist. New York: Harper, 1952. Pp. 462. Reviewed by A. S. C. Ehrenberg     

持续学习组织文化研究

学习型组织是目前管理领域中组织变革的主流方向之一,本研究指出塑造持续学习之组织文化是创建学习型组织的重要内容。通过自编问卷,对国营与非国营两种性质不同群体员工的调研,初步确定持续学习组织文化的结构维度。研究还考察了组织文化和一些组织行为以及实际的学习行为之间的关系。