Search results

This paper investigates why mothers are losing to fathers in contested child custody battles that have occurred between 1980 and 2003. It employs quantitative, qualitative, and contextual strategies to understand the complex set of forces involved. The findings suggest that single mothers and children are increasingly trapped in a war zone between cost conscious policymakers ideologically opposed to the welfare state, angry fathers shouldering the burden of a shift from public to private transfers of funding in the form of child support, religious zealots intent on turning back the clock to a mythical patriarchal Eden, and the legal doctrine of gender neutrality reflecting these political forces.

Addresses the value of laughter, play and a sense of humour as tools for improving communication, innovation and empowerment. Organizations around the world are hiring the author, and other facilitators, to deliver playful and humorous programmes designed to help team members develop a creative collaborative and customer‐centred culture. Lowering stress, improving interpersonal skills, increasing creativity and accelerating learning all can be accomplished by including fun in the workplace. These behaviours and skills support the empowered organization.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the factors once identified through literature and compared to the current situation in South Africa could predict the possibility of a tax revolt in South Africa. South Africans are experiencing frequent increases in taxes on already overburdened taxpayers, corruption, a lack of service delivery by the government and high unemployment rates. South Africa has seen an increased amount of protests relating to taxes, corruption and a lack of basic services.

In total, 12,000 Twitter feeds were collected from 14 February 2017 to 1 March 2017, the period before, during and after the South African National Budget Speech on 22 February 2017. The feeds were analysed using a thematic analysis. The emerging themes were identified as factors present in South Africa that may predict a possible tax revolt.

The factors found to be present in South Africa are: F1-failure of government to address the imminent collapse, F2-significant number of people with substantial debt, F3-onerous tax systems, including many different types of taxes, F4-high number of unemployed people, F5-education frustration, F6-increase in tax rates on citizens already overburdened by current taxes, F7-poor quality of governors, and performance of the country’s leaders and administration, including fraud and F8-wastefulness.

The value of the study is, first to contribute to the existing academic literature examining the factors that are likely to indicate a tax revolts. Second, the study uses an innovative data source, namely, tweets, to examine the climate for a possible tax revolt in South Africa.

A total of 220 managers from a banking organisation were surveyed. No differences for age, educational background, employment history or managerial level were found, but females were significantly more likely than males to be the first person of their sex to hold their particular managerial position. Women are significantly less likely to be married or to have children. They have significantly fewer children, and their children tend to be significantly younger than those of their male colleagues. Women still have to make choices that men do not in order to further their careers. Average scores for occupational pressures were not high for either sex. Men report higher levels of pressure stemming from the work environment and managerial relationships with subordinates and superiors. Women report significantly higher pressures stemming from perceived gender inequities and work‐life balance concerns. Discussion focuses on why women bank managers do not perceive the workplace as free of gender‐related and work‐life balance pressures.

The purpose of this study is to investigate members’ reactions to the forced closure of a narrative video game brand community and its participatory culture.

The BioWare Social Network forums closure was announced in a thread, which attracted 8,891 posts. These were analysed using thematic analysis, facilitated by the software program Leximancer and non-participatory netnography.

The brand community and participatory culture members were predominantly distressed because they would lose their relationships with each other and access to the participatory culture’s creative output.

Previous research suggested that video game players cannot be fans and that player-generated content is exploitative. However, members, self-identified as fans, encouraged BioWare’s use of their player-created content for financial gain and articulated the community’s marketing benefits, all of which have implications for Fan and Game Studies’ researchers. Research using primary data could identify brand communities and participatory cultures’ specific benefits and their members’ attitudes about brands’ commercial use of their outputs. Further research is required to identify other products and brands not suitable for establishing brand communities on social media to determine the best ways to manage them.

Addressing narrative brand communities’ complaints quickly can prevent negative financial outcomes and using social media sites for brand communities may not be suitable structurally or because of members’ privacy concerns. Furthermore, consumers often have intense emotional bonds with narrative brands, their communities and participatory cultures, which marketers may underestimate or misunderstand.

This study of the unique phenomenon of the forced closure of a narrative brand community and its participatory culture increased understandings about them.

This chapter examines recent citizenship policy change in Europe in order to address two important questions. First, are immigrant-receiving states undergoing a “restrictive turn,” making citizenship less accessible to foreigners? Our analysis finds that while certain restrictive developments have certainly occurred, a broader comparative perspective shows that these hardly amount to a larger restrictive trend. Second, regardless of what the restrictive changes amount to, what explains why certain countries have added more onerous requirements for citizenship? In answering this question, we focus on the politics of citizenship. We argue that once citizenship becomes politicized – thus mobilizing the latent anti-immigrant sentiments of the population – the result will likely be either the blocking of liberalizing pressures or the imposition of new restrictive measures. We support this argument by focusing on three countries: a case of genuine restrictiveness (Germany), another where the anti-immigrant rhetoric's bark has been more noticeable than the citizenship policy's bite (the United Kingdom), and one where proposed policy change in the restrictive direction does not add up to a restrictive policy overall, but rather a normalization with other liberal citizenship regimes in Europe (Belgium). We argue that politics accounts for why states adopt restrictive policies, and we conclude that it is premature and inaccurate to suggest that policies of exclusion are converging across Europe.

Addresses the value of laughter, play and a sense of humor as tools for improving communication, innovation and empowerment. Organizations around the world are hiring the author, and other facilitators, to deliver playful and humorous programs designed to help team members develop a creative, collaborative and customer‐centered culture. Lowering stress, improving interpersonal skills, increasing creativity and accelerating learning all can be accomplished by including fun in the workplace. These behaviors and skills support the empowered organization.