Current social work perspectives on clinical practice

Several forms of progress in the development of clinical practice theory and method are identified. There is a renewed positive valuation of psychodynamic approaches, a general acceptance of a systems framework, and a greater operationalization of procedures. The current controversy between the social work scientists and artists concerning research strategies is discussed. Three promising new perspectives—of morality, spirituality, and hermeneutics-are briefly interpreted.     

Family Therapy … What's in a Name?

In the search for therapeutic efficacy, we vacillate from ‘certitude’ to ‘certitude’, repetitively embracing and then discarding the objects of our intellectual passion(!). The following juxtaposition of images and sounds is intended to suggest that ‘wisdom’ and ‘truth’ may derive from a more judicious and multi-layered integration of enquiry and fidelity. The idea of narrative implies not only a story but also a range of possible relationships between narrator and listener, and raises for examination the qualities of both parties. A ‘good story’ may lie as much in the probity of the relationship as in what is told or heard. It is even possible a ‘good story’ may not always be a story for ‘good’.     

Service tasks of board of directors: A literature review and research agenda in an era of new governance practices

In their seminal review article on board of directors, Johnson, Daily, and Ellstrand (1996) distinguished between the control, service, and resource dependence tasks of the board and called for a stronger focus on board service tasks. Following this call, service tasks of boards have been subject to increased scholarly attention, with new theoretical perspectives and methods introduced. This paper aims at presenting the current state of research on board service tasks, departing from, and building on, the contribution of Johnson and colleagues. In doing so, we employ an Input-Process-Output-Context framework and craft an agenda for how future research could accommodate new governance practices and progress the field. Our review is relevant and timely as studies on the subject are gaining traction both in corporate governance and general management journals. Furthermore, our review on board service tasks proposes new alternative approaches to studying corporate governance which are especially appropriate in times in which a rethink of corporate governance frameworks and concepts is urgently needed.     

Learning in Public Sector Organizations: A Theory of Action Approach

The importance of learning has since long been acknowledged for both business and public sector organizations. However, learning theory and research have tended to neglect the differences between these organizations, and to develop in separate and unrelated directions. To address these developments, this paper purports, first, to develop a theoretical framework that integrates various concepts from the fields of public policy learning and organizational learning, and that is specifically directed at public sector organizations. Second, the paper purports to illustrate the utility of this framework by applying it to policy-making in a Dutch municipality, the Pegasustown prostitution case.     

送行

我不会送行。它可是我所认为的世上最难做好的事情之一，对此，你大概也心有同感。     

Inference With Dyadic Data: Asymptotic Behavior of the Dyadic-Robust t-Statistic

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with inference in the linear model with dyadic data. Dyadic data are indexed by pairs of “units;” for example, trade data between pairs of countries. Because of the potential for observations with a unit in common to be correlated, standard inference procedures may not perform as expected. We establish a range of conditions under which a t-statistic with the dyadic-robust variance estimator of Fafchamps and Gubert is asymptotically normal. Using our theoretical results as a guide, we perform a simulation exercise to study the validity of the normal approximation, as well as the performance of a novel finite-sample correction. We conclude with guidelines for applied researchers wishing to use the dyadic-robust estimator for inference.