Fostering Desistance

In the past three decades, social scientists have made real progress in understanding “desistance,” or the process of transitioning away from criminal behavior. Yet criminal justice policies and practices have been slow to adopt the lessons of life course criminology. Connecting research on desistance theories, particularly identity-based theories, to reentry policies is crucial to understanding the context of criminal offending. Repeated interactions between individuals involved in crime and the police, courts or prison populations can actually increase the salience of criminal identities and strengthen relationships with others involved in crime. Alternatively, movement toward more positively valued adult roles can help foster and gradually stabilize non-criminal identities through the same role commitment process. As a short-term reform, “the problem facing those returning to civilian life from prison is fundamentally a problem of entry rather than reentry.” Furthermore, if the task of entry is one of integrating into “pro-social adult life”, people need programs that support desistance by fostering success in education, employment, family relationships, maintaining a residence, and participating as a citizen in the community. In the medium-term, we see a crucial need to eliminate most collateral consequences of criminal justice involvement because “It makes little sense for a system to encourage or support the adoption of an identity if the people who pass through it are marked as unredeemable.” Finally, there is a long-term need to eliminate structural barriers that prevent people from fully participating in civil society and minimize crime through equitable social policy.

Role Commitment and Role Maintenance Strategies: A Symbolic interactionist Approach to Volunteering

There are numerous reports on the rates of attrition among volunteers as a persistent challenge for organizations. In explaining volunteer attrition, researchers have predominantly: 1) provided an individualistic account of volunteering; 2) overlooked the interactional dimension of volunteer work and the crucial role of interpretation in its development; and 3) assumed commitment as a function of satisfaction with volunteering experience. Drawing on the theoretical insights of a symbolic interactionist approach, this article contends that volunteers’ role commitment hinges on their satisfaction with their interpretation of their interaction with clients, rather than the interaction itself. This perspective calls attention to the volunteer-client dyadic interaction, gives a prominent place to the social role and its definition, and draws attention to strategies used by volunteers to sustain challenging relationship with clients. RÉSUMÉIl existe de nombreux rapports sur les pourcentages de bénévoles perdus et le défi que ces pertes posent pour les organismes. Pour expliquer ces bénévoles perdus, les chercheurs ont surtout : 1) fourni des comptes rendus individualistes du bénévolat; 2) ignoré la dimension interactionnelle du bénévolat et le rôle crucial de l’interprétation dans le développement des interactions; et 3) pris pour acquis l’engagement comme indice de satisfaction des bénévoles. Se fondant sur la perspective théorique offerte par l’interactionnisme symbolique, cet article maintient que l’engagement des bénévoles dépend de la manière dont ils interprètent leurs interactions avec les clients plutôt que des interactions elles-mêmes. Cette perspective met l’accent sur l’interaction dyadique entre le bénévole et le client, donne une place de choix au rôle social et à sa définition, et attire l’attention sur les stratégies employées par les bénévoles pour gérer des rapports parfois difficiles avec leurs clients.

Social media resources and export performance: the role of trust and commitment

PurposeThe study sought to examine the influence of social media resources on export performance and the role commitment and trust play in this relationship using an integrated model.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative survey design was employed for this study. Empirical data for this paper were drawn from 210 exporting firms in Ghana, using purposive sampling technique. The hypothesized links were analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe result of this study reveals that social media resources and marketing capabilities directly influence export performance and indirectly through commitment and trust.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to attempt to use an integrated model (resource-based view and commitment-trust theory) to understand and explain an international marketing phenomenon. By concentrating on Ghana, the study offers new insights regarding the pathway for exporting firms in emerging markets.

Role Commitment and Acceptance in a Sport Context

The objectives of this study were to (a) develop a conceptualization of role acceptance, later situated within the broader concept of role commitment, pertinent to the sport environment; (b) develop a measure integrating direct perceptions of role commitment and the bases of this variable; and (c) determine if role commitment could predict athletes’ intentions to return. To accomplish these objectives, multiple methods were used across 4 projects that leveraged the extant literature on acceptance and commitment perceptions from sport and organizational psychology, engaged athletes in focus groups in a think-aloud protocol, and obtained responses on iterative versions of a new role-commitment questionnaire from over 700 athletes from a variety of competitive and developmental levels. Overall, this approach captured the bases of role commitment (affective, normative, and continuance perspectives), as well as direct perceptions of role commitment, and demonstrated an important link to intentions to return to sport.