The Person/Environment Dynamics of Employee Empowerment: An Organizational Culture Analysis

Using an organizational culture framework, this case study examines the critical preconditions necessary for employee empowerment and highlights how the multiple cultures within one public bureaucracy differently impacted their implementation. SERVE, a large human service organization, initiated an employee empowerment program that contradicted and thus collided with many elements of its overall organizational culture. Despite the best intentions of the organizational leaders, upper management support, and opportunities for participatory decision making, the organization could not foster the critical preconditions needed for employee empowerment. Leaders had difficulty expanding the employees' power and promoting member inclusion. Concurrently, most employees rejected these new opportunities for control and distrusted the leader's intentions. Yet, despite the widespread rejection of these empowerment initiatives, most employees described their work lives as empowering. The role the local site subculture played in promoting employee empowerment is examined. We discuss how a localized (vs. system-wide) empowerment endeavor may be a more appropriate and feasible focus for public bureaucracies seeking to initiate greater staff empowerment. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between individuals and their environments, and how this interaction affects the empowerment process.     

Training public-speaking behavior: an experimental analysis and social validation

The effect of an instructional package on public-speaking behaviors was analyzed in two experiments. The instructional package was designed to teach public-speaking trainees to look at the audience, make gestures, and perform a number of speaking behaviors. The results of Experiment I, with a university student serving as the trainee, showed that the percentage of each category of public-speaking target behavior increased only after the instructional package was introduced for that category. The results of Experiment 2, with three low-income paraprofessional staff members of a neighborhood service center serving as trainees, showed that the percentage of target behaviors increased after the instructional package was introduced for the respective trainee. Audience ratings of public-speaking performance were correlated with direct observations of target responses. All trainees showed marked improvements in audience ratings from pretraining to posttraining. This study demonstrated an effective procedure for training public-speaking behaviors.     

Alterity,Intimacy, and the Cultural Turn in Religious Ethics

This essay responds to four critics of Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics and Culture: Diana Fritz Cates, Eric Gregory, Ross Moret, and Atalia Omer. Focusing on the book’s organizing concepts of intimacy and alterity, engagement with empirical sources, discussion of Augustine’s thought, and attention to moral psychology and political morality, these interlocutors take up various strands in the book’s argument and extend them into metaethical, normative, and metadisciplinary domains. The author organizes his response under three rubrics: Metaethics and Personal Relationships; Political Morality; and Multidisciplinary Horizons.     

大学生在社会困境中的公平决策:社会价值取向的影响

通过两项研究考查大学生在社会困境中的行为决策及公平感体验,检验社会价值取向的影响作用,有效被试分别为85名和84名。结果表明:(1)亲社会者比亲自我者更倾向做公平决策;信息对称比不对称条件更促进被试做公平决策;女生比男生更倾向做公平决策。(2)性别在社会价值取向与信息对称性对公平决策的影响中起调节作用,社会价值取向显著影响男生的公平决策,信息对称性显著影响女生的公平决策。(3)社会价值取向显著影响个体对不公平的容忍度,亲社会者更不容忍不公平行为。(4)对于利己的不公平行为,被试都倾向接受,亲社会者并不比亲自我者体验到更强的内疚情绪;对于不利己的不公平行为,被试都倾向拒绝,且产生较强的不公平感及气愤情绪。     

社会价值取向和反馈方式对公共物品困境中决策行为的影响

本研究通过模拟投资实验和问卷来探讨重复型公共物品困境中社会价值取向（SVO）与信息反馈方式对决策行为的影响。结果表明：(1)合作型SVO的个体比非合作型个体表现出更多的合作行为;(2)SVO与信息反馈方式的交互作用岁实验轮次越来越显著,非合作型的个体会受信息反馈方式的影响,而合作型个体则不易受反馈方式的影响;(3)与无反馈的条件相比,集体反馈倾向于促进个体的合作行为,个体反馈倾向于抑制合作行为,但反馈所造成的适应性改变使情况更为复杂。     

国际健康城市计划的理论与实践

健康城市计划由世界卫生组织欧洲区在1987年发起, 其理论基础是人人享有卫生保健和《渥太华健康促进宪章》, 以健康承诺、制定公共卫生政策、开展多部门合作、加强社区参与、注重创新和健康的公共政策为特征。健康城市计划的开展分为启动阶段、组织计划阶段和行动阶段, 指标体系包括健康指标、健康服务指标、环境指标和社会经济指标等四个方面。目前, 世界卫生组织六个区域均已开展健康城市计划, 我国北京、上海、苏州、杭州、长春等地的健康城市计划开展良好。     

公立医院管理体制改革的经济学视角

在社会主义市场经济体制下,传统公立医院管理体制存在很多问题。探讨了公立医院管理体制改革所涉及的产权、政府举办的非营利医院之间的关系和处理方法、政府在医疗服务体系中的职责以及政府管理公立医院的形式等问题,提出了深化公立医院管理体制改革的方向和政策建议。     

公共卫生与全民的健康意识

SARS事件使公共卫生和全民的健康意识问题成为全社会的焦点问题,现在人们更加关注的是后SARS时代我国公共卫生建设和全民健康意识喜忧参半的现状,也许更有意义的是探讨公共卫生与全民健康意识的关系,明确健康意识的内涵,认清民众的健康误区,重视全民的健康教育。     

关于我国流动人口公共卫生管理的思考

大量的流动人口从农村流入城市,在推动城市社会、经济发展的同时,也带来了诸如流动人口治安管理、子女教育和卫生保健等问题。通过对流动人口公共卫生管理中存在主要问题分析,提出了改善流动人口公共卫生管理构建和谐社会的5项建议。     

应用发展科学 ——一门研究人与社会发展的新兴学科

20世纪以来,社会、经济和地缘政治的变化使得科学与服务以及知识的研发与应用之间的矛盾进一步加剧。顺应社会发展的要求,发展心理学融合诸多相关学科而逐渐形成了一门新兴学科——应用发展科学（Applied Developmental Science）。与传统发展心理学相比,应用发展科学更强调生态化研究、发展性研究、积极干预和发展知识的普及。它力图实现多学科间知识的融合增效以及深入社会的知识研发和应用,从而更好地以问题为中心来解决影响个体发展的社会问题。应用发展科学能够为有关人类发展的科学研究和实践应用提供新的知识经验,同时,它又通过直接参与和影响社会政策的制定与实施来促进社会的积极发展