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There is extensive research documenting the physical outcomes of childbirth, but significantly less on socio-psychological outcomes. Investigating women’s perception of dignified treatment during birth contributes to a salient, under-examined aspect of women’s childbirth experiences.

We use a two-part conceptualization of dignity, respect and autonomy, to understand how birth experiences and interactions either facilitate or undermine women’s perceived dignity. Data came from the Listening-to-Mothers I survey, the first nationally representative study of postpartum women in the United States (n = 1,406). Through linear regression analysis, we separately modeled women’s perception of respectful treatment and women’s perception of medical autonomy during birth.

Overall women reported high scores for both autonomy and respect. Differences between the models emerged related primarily to the role of interventions and provider support. While women’s perceived dignity is related to elements that she brings in to the delivery room (e.g., birth knowledge, health status), much variation was explained by the medical encounter itself (e.g., type of medical interventions, pain management, nurse support, and number of staff present).

This study is cross-sectional, and required either a telephone or internet access, thus limiting the full generalizability of findings. Two findings have direct practical relevance for promoting women’s dignity in childbirth. First, the number of staff persons present during labor and birth was negatively associated with both respect and autonomy. Second, that women with high levels of knowledge about their legal rights during childbirth were more likely to report high scores on the dignity scale. Limiting staff in the delivery room and including knowledge of legal rights in childbirth education or during prenatal visits may be two mechanisms to promote dignity in birth.

These findings address an important, under-examined aspect of women’s childbirth experiences. This study investigates how different birth experiences and interactions either promote or violate childbearing women’s perception of dignity, and has significant implications for the provision of maternal healthcare. The results reinforce the importance of focusing on the socio-psychological dimensions of childbirth.

Julie E. Artis, Associate Professor of Sociology at DePaul University, received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Indiana University in 1999. Her research interests include family, law, and child well-being. Her recent work has appeared in Journal of Marriage and Family, Law and Society Review, and Violence Against Women. She is currently investigating how family structure and parental resources influence child cognitive and psycho-social outcomes.

Organizational approaches to racial inequality have provided contextual insight into a host of traditional stratification outcomes (e.g., hiring, earnings, authority). This chapter extends the organizational approach by drawing on the health-stress framework to explore how organizational context affects experiential and health-related outcomes – discrimination, social support, and psychological distress. Drawing on a sample of Black workers in the United States, we examine the relationship between workplace racial composition and psychological distress, as well as two potential mediators – racial discrimination and workplace social support. Our findings reveal that psychological distress is similar for Black workers in token (<25% Black coworkers), tilted other race (25–49.99% Black coworkers), and tilted same race (50–74.99% Black coworkers) job contexts. Workers in Black-dominated jobs (>75% Black coworkers), however, experience significantly less psychological distress than other compositional thresholds, net of individual, job, and workplace characteristics. This relationship is not explained by either racial discrimination experiences or supervisor and coworker social support. This finding suggests that researchers need to theorize and examine other protective factors stemming from coworker racial similarity.

Research on mentorship has been dominated by the West and little is known about the cultural variations of the mentoring phenomenon in Asian countries. A richer understanding of the cultural context that is more attuned to mentoring experience in Asia can help to improve workplace experience, in general, for those working in and for those who intend to work in the region. This chapter captures the important theoretical lenses in the mentoring literature, and also provides a clear demarcation between negative mentoring and dysfunctional mentoring. This is followed by contextualizing mentoring as per four of Hofstede's six cultural dimensions by dwelling on mentoring experience in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It is hoped that this chapter will pave the way for further research, which may be a precursor for theory development.

Social entrepreneurs in both the developed and the developing countries have established social enterprises with the intent of solving social problems leveraging social innovations that create sustainable social impact goals. The research gap that calls for this research is the question: ‘Are social problems, social objectives, social activities, social outputs, social outcomes and social impact goals of social enterprises the same in the developed and the developing countries?’ Against the above backdrop, this chapter presents a comparative discourse of cases of social enterprises in the developed and developing countries using the Theory of Change framework to provide answers to the above research question. The chapter adopts a qualitative research method to generate rich findings from diverse cases, reports, articles, and other secondary sources from the developed and developing economies. To ensure academic rigour and objectivity, a sample of 50 scholarly works on social enterprises were reviewed, which produced in-depth insights on the subject. Additionally, 16 cases on social enterprises from the developed and developing countries were purposively selected and meticulously analysed using the content analysis (CA) and the thematic analysis (TA). The first finding revealed that the social enterprises in the developed countries focused on ‘the secondary-level social issues’ such as education, health, environmental issues, psycho-social disabilities, wealth inequality, integration enterprises, work-integration services, financial exclusion, and gender balance. This is the focus of Ashoka, Children Commissioner, Allen Carr Easyway, Angaza Design Inc., Bridge International Academies, and others. The second finding indicated that the social enterprises in the developing countries focused on ‘the primary level social issues’ such as illiteracy, poor school enrollment, unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, gender imbalance, weak healthcare system including hygiene and sanitation. This is the focus of VisionSpring, Danone Clover – Daniladies and Danimama, Unjani Clinic NPC, Indego Africa, and others. The implication of the findings is that irrespective of continental contexts, social enterprises are established to bridge critical social problems, hence their philosophy transcends geographical contexts. The chapter concludes with a summary of insightful information and suggestions, which could trigger more empirical research on the subject.

In this article, the impact displacement due to war conditions has on children and their families will be explored with particular focus on Syrian children and families. It is observed that during local, regional and/or global wars, those who suffer most are the non-combatant civilians, particularly families and children. This phenomenon was observed in 2010 when protests against the economic situation triggered the Arab Revolt. These revolts commenced in Tunisia, eventually spreading to other parts of the Middle East. In the midst of these events the Syrian issue acquired great importance. The demonstrations which began in 2011, aiming at Başşar Al-Asad's resignation from his post in Syria, started as an internal war. However, they eventually led to the involvement of other regional and trans-regional actors, turning into a crisis. The unrest now continues as a low-profile crisis. As in previous wars, civilians, especially families with children, have been the main victims in Syria. The intense fighting and increasing terrorist activities forced most non-combatant Syrian civilians and families with children to flee their country. Most opted to immigrate to safer countries, particularly Turkey and in Europe, searching for better living conditions. This article highlights the bad experiences Syrians had when they immigrated. Existing Turkish and European policies might be amongst various factors which trigger immigrants' bad experiences. They require closer observation so one can better understand the processes in action. Against this backdrop, this paper examines how Syrian children have been affected by the internal war in their country, which has been ongoing since 2011, and how Turkey treats Syrian children as part of its humanitarian-oriented immigration policy.

This chapter seeks to advance ongoing research concerning entrepreneurial commitment. While the concept of commitment has been addressed time and again in organizational literature, few entrepreneurship scholars have used it to understand entrepreneurial behaviors. In line with recent developments in entrepreneurial psycho-social literature (Fayolle & Liñán, 2014; Adam & Fayolle, 2015; Van Gelderen, Kautonen, Wincent, & Biniari, 2018), this conceptual chapter aims to advance understanding of the concept of commitment in the context of emerging organizations. Building on Meyer and Allen’s three-component model of commitment (TCM), it addresses how this multidimensional concept, developed in the organizational setting, is a lens through which one can investigate volitional phases of the entrepreneurial process (Van Gelderen, Kautonen, & Fink, 2015). Our work also explores how the TCM could be specifically adapted for emerging organizations, drawing on its main evolutions and re-conceptualizations since the 1990s. In this way, it uncovers potential avenues for further research on how to operationalize entrepreneurial activity. In doing so, it enhances knowledge of the entrepreneurial process and can improve training and support techniques for nascent entrepreneurs. It also contributes to broader discussions on the TCM and how it should be adapted in order to foster self-determined processes.