Restructuring of Finnish Trade Unions – the Growing Importance of Women

The membership profile of Finnish trade unions has changed from male-dominated industrial workers to female-dominated service and public sector workers who are more highly educated. The Finnish labour market is strongly divided into female and male occupations and sectors, and these intersectional differences play an important part in the differentiation of developmental paths. The erosion of membership is mainly due to the rapid growth of the independent unemployment fund (YTK) competing with unemployment funds associated with trade unions. YTK has been much more successful in recruiting private sector male workers than women. Men’s decisions not to join the union are related to the shift in the motivation to unionise from social custom to instrumental reasons. Along with the gender majority shift, union identification has changed, and unions need to carry out ‘identity work’ to attain members. The shift in gender proportions has also had consequences for the collective bargaining system.

The Sequence of Isomorphism—: The Temporal Diffusion Patterns of Quality Management in Higher Education Institutions and Hospitals

Isomorphism has been widely used to describe why trends penetrate entire organizational fields. However, research so far has neglected the temporal aspects of such diffusion processes and the organizational reasons underlying the introduction of new management tools. We argue that during reform waves, the reasons for adopting the new tools differ over time. Using comparative data from two surveys on quality management in the field of higher education and the health sector, we show that early adopters are more likely to be motivated by instrumental reasons, while late adopters will more likely be motivated by institutional reasons.

Parfit on Love and Partiality

It is generally held that in his 1984 book Reasons and Persons Derek Parfit was advocating greater impartiality in ethics. In his later work, On What Matters, he seems more inclined to accept that we have partial reasons, for example, to give priority to those we love. This chapter raises some questions concerning Parfit’s arguments for partiality, including whether affection is too contingent to be valuable in itself, and whether partial concern for others, shared histories, or commitments can plausibly be said to ground non-instrumental reasons or value. The paper ends with a discussion of gratitude and an argument based on Parfit’s reductionist conception of personal identity.

Distributive Justice

This chapter develops the implications of liberal relational egalitarianism for the distribution of goods produced by social cooperation. It shows that there are not only strong instrumental reasons to set stringent limits to inequality of income, wealth, and opportunity, on grounds of both non-domination and social status, but, contrary to what both many critics and proponents of relational equality argue, strong non-instrumental, expressive reasons to do so, as well: since participants in social cooperation are equals, all inequalities in social goods need to be justified by justice-relevant reasons even where they do not lead to domination or social status inequality. Rightly understood, relational egalitarianism thus requires a concentric attack on material inequality in society as well as on its sources in power inequality, through a plurality of rationales.

Why do citizens (not) support democratic innovations? The role of instrumental motivations in support for participatory budgeting

Why do citizens (not) support democratic innovations? Existing research shows that citizens mostly support such new ways of involving citizens in policy-making for instrumental reasons: the more a democratic innovation leads to outcomes they favour, the more likely they are to express support for it. However, it remains ambiguous why citizens care so much about favourable outcomes. This study disentangles the effect of outcome favourability on support for democratic innovations by testing two mechanisms: self-interest and sociotropy. It relies on three survey experiments on Dutch citizens’ support for a local democratic innovation (participatory budgeting) ( N = 2,491). The results confirm that outcome favourability is important in explaining citizens’ support for participatory budgets (Study 1). We find evidence for both self-interest (Study 2) and sociotropy (Study 3) as drivers of the effect and present preliminary evidence that self-interest may trump sociotropy in citizens’ evaluations of democratic innovations.

EXPLORING REASONS BEHIND JOINING ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTERS (ELC): A CASE STUDY OF PASHTO SPEAKING UNDERGRADUATES IN QUETTA CITY

English language centers prove to be very helpful in being one of the major contributors of English language learning in expanding circle countries of concentric model introduced by Kachru (1989). This study undertakes the theory presented by Stephen Kreshan (1981, 1982) “monitor model” which is basically amalgamation of five hypotheses. This very endeavor was done through quantitative mode of inquiry utilizing survey questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. Total population was Pashto speaker students of Quetta city and sample size comprised of 100 undergraduates, particularly, the Pashto speakers, from Quetta city. Collected data was analyzed through SPSS software. The Findings show various reasons behind students joining English language centers. Some of them include good environment of ELC, along with several academic, personal, and instrumental reasons. It is recommended that in future the research could be expanded to multiple case studies comprising Pashto speakers and multilingual, longitudinal research and comparative study between teaching English at school and language centers.

How Infant and Toddlers’ Media Use Is Related to Sleeping Habits in Everyday Life in Italy

BackgroundHeavy media use has been linked to sleep problems in children, which may also extend to the infancy period. While international parent-advisory agencies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (2016), advise no screen time before 18 months, parents often do not follow this recommendation. Research on Italian infants’ early access to media is sparse, and only very few studies have investigated links with sleeping habits.MethodTo address this gap, we examined concurrent associations between parent-reported surveys of child technology use and sleeping patterns. The Italian version of the 60 item Comprehensive Assessment of Family Media Exposure (CAFE) Survey, developed as part of a larger international study, (Barr et al., 2020), the Brief Screening Questionnaire for Infant Sleep Problems (BISQ) Sadeh, 2004) were completed online by 264 Italian parents of 8- to 36-month-olds and a subset (n = 134) completed the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Abidin, 1995) between April 2017 and April 2018.ResultsMore devices located in the child’s room and the more time spent watching TV or using an iPad were associated with less hours of sleep at night. Furthermore, more time spent watching TV or using a smartphone, as well as the number of devices in the room was associated with going to sleep later at night. Instrumental media use was associated with less sleep.ConclusionLike other countries, Italian infants have high levels of exposure to media, and differences in media patterns were associated with sleep patterns. Cultural factors influence both instrumental reasons for media use and sleep practices. Further research should explore how media use may serve to regulate emotion as a function of both contextual factors and individual differences.

Quality of Life and Its Correlates in People Serving Prison Sentences in Penitentiary Institutions

Background: The aim of the study was to analyze the determinants of prison inmates’ quality of life (QoL). Methods: 390 men imprisoned in penitentiary institutions were assessed. Data were collected by means of the Sense of Quality of Life Questionnaire (SQLQ), general self-efficacy scale (GSES), resilience assessment scale (RAS-25), social support scale (SSS), intensity of religious attitude scale (IRA), SPI/TPI, and COPE Inventory, measures that have high validity and reliability. All models were specified in a path analysis using Mplus version 8.2. Results: The positive correlates of QoL are: self-efficacy, social support, intensity of religious attitude, trait and state depression, resilience, and the following coping strategies, which are at the same time mediators between the variables mentioned above and QoL: behavioral disengagement, turning to religion, planning, and seeking social support for instrumental reasons. Conclusions: In penitentiary practice, attention should be devoted to depressive individuals, and support should be provided to them in the first place because depressiveness is the strongest negative correlate of important aspects of prisoners’ QoL. All the remaining significant factors, namely: self-efficacy, social support, intensity of religious attitude, and the following coping strategies: turning to religion, planning, and seeking social support for instrumental reasons, should be taken into account in rehabilitation programs.

A Mixed-Method Examination of Coaches’ Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Toward Athletes

Athletes often upregulate and downregulate pleasant or unpleasant emotions to feel or perform better (i.e., for hedonic or instrumental reasons). In addition to athletes regulating their own emotions, interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) also occurs in sports, wherein individuals attempt to regulate the emotions of others. Although previous research has examined IER between teammates, studies have rarely considered coaches’ efforts to regulate athletes’ emotions. The current mixed-method study explored coaches’ beliefs about athletes’ emotions and engagement in IER. Analysis of quantitative survey data (N = 208) and qualitative interview data (n = 10) from competitive level coaches (Mage = 44.0 ± 13.2 years) revealed that coaches perceived both benefits and detriments of various emotions, and coaches’ beliefs about emotions influenced the ways they attempted to regulate athletes’ emotions. Most coaches reported frequently engaging in affect-improving IER. Although the coaches generally opposed the idea of intentionally worsening athletes’ emotions, sometimes their feedback to athletes had the effect of worsening their emotions. Coaches also emphasized the need to consider athletes’ individual differences when engaging in IER. The current findings highlight the relevance of coaches’ IER, suggest several directions for future research, and offer useful considerations for coaches and coach education programs.