Tenure Position Research Articles

The dynamics of Imperata: historical overview and current farmer perspectives, with special reference to South Kalimantan, Indonesia

The paper reviews modern attitudes to and uses of imperata grasslands in parts of Southeast Asia, including government and NGO efforts at reforestation. It is argued that the perspective of small farmers has usually been inadequately considered in planning the ‘rehabilitation’ of Imperata. A historical overview of the impact of changes in land use, population, vegetation dynamics and human adaptation on the creation, disappearance or persistence of Imperata provides a context for the present concerns and emphasizes the wide variability of the situation at the local level. Nine questions are proposed as needing consideration whenever changes are planned to a grassland-based system. They cover three main areas: 1) the origins, past and present uses of the grasslands (including the present land tenure position and variations in uses by ethnic group, socio-economic status and gender); 2) perceptions by farmers of the opportunities and constraints provided by local micro-environments, particularly vegetation types; 3) farmer suggestions for ways of improving their economic status and the potential benefits of agroforestry innovations. These questions are applied to one case study area, the Riam Kiwa valley of South Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Labour Mobility and the Changing Housing Market

Labour mobility as a concept is not as straightforward as it first appears and has different meanings in different contexts. Mobility as a policy concern arose in Britain in the 1980s and assumed a particular form. It was often confined to a discussion of geographical movement between labour markets and the constraints imposed on potential job-seekers by their tenure position. Mobility can indeed be expressed in this way, but this captures only one aspect of job movement. At other times there are concerns with industrial and occupational mobility and notions such as job changing, labour turnover and flows also feature in employment policy discussions. This article raises the question as to whether mobility propensity is an attribute of the individual or the post that the employee might have or seek. The analysis offered here suggests the latter and accordingly an alternative explanation of labour and housing market interactions is provided. The article is written in five parts. It begins by critically assessing the neoclassical contribution to the discussion, followed by a brief review of the mobility debates over the last 50 years. It goes on to examine the involvement of employers in the housing market and studies the interaction of housing and labour markets in different phases of the business cycle. In conclusion, it is suggested that labour mobility is a structured opportunity determined by the level of employer assistance, the transferability of skills and qualifications, and the development of internal labour markets.

The Effects of Holding Nonfarm Related Financial Assets On Risk-Adjusted Farm Income

AbstractA discrete stochastic programming model is formulated to study the gains from diversification when farming operations are augmented with off-farm financial assets that are not highly correlated with returns from farming. We extend past research by considering the dynamics of accumulating these financial assets and the farm's leverage and tenure position. Results show that farmers' income level and stability can be improved by including nonfarm financial assets in their portfolios.

The Influence of Computer Usage on Employees and Managers' Satisfaction: Findings from the Australian Telecommunications

The impact of computer usage on job attitudes is an area of keen academic and professional interests. Despite much research scrutiny, it remains difficult to identify differences in end users' satisfaction that might be explained by variations in individual/job characteristics and patterns of computer usage. This article reports on the findings of a survey of 1300 employees from the Australian Telecommunications Industry and examines the impact of computer usage on job satisfaction. The results revealed that job satisfaction was positively influenced by the extent of computer usage, aspects of computer-related training and demographic characteristics such as tenure and job position. Further, consideration of different areas of usage for different sub-groups (based on job-status & tenure) revealed that the extent of use in different functional areas (by different sub-groups) tended to affect user satisfaction to a different degree. In particular, it was found that computer usage in more varied activities such as R&D tended to have a strong positive impact on satisfaction while usage in other areas had varying impacts on the above sub-groups (i.e., managers and non-managers). The results illuminate some of the human resource and training issues and challenges that organizations engaged in extensive computerization may need to address.

Garbage Cans and the Hiring Process

seemingly incomprehensible and potentially very disheartening process of getting placed at an academic, tenure track position. Unlike others, I want to relate this to other prospective job candidates while I am still a candidate myself, before my understanding of the process is "contaminated" by firsthand experience. My argument is that factors within and beyond a candidate's control shape the process, making it both promising and frustrating. The following is based on personal experience and reflection as well as information gathered from numerous interviewees at a

Garbage Cans and the Hiring Process

seemingly incomprehensible and potentially very disheartening process of getting placed at an academic, tenure track position. Unlike others, I want to relate this to other prospective job candidates while I am still a candidate myself, before my understanding of the process is contaminated by firsthand experience. My argument is that factors within and beyond a candidate's control shape the process, making it both promising and frustrating. The following is based on personal experience and reflection as well as information gathered from numerous interviewees at a

Letting Go of Outlived Professional Identities: A Study of Role Transition and Role Strain for Principals in Restructured Schools

Restructuring in schools has become one strategy for making significant changes in education. This article takes a preliminary empirical look at role transitions and role strain resulting from restructuring initiatives in schools in four districts. General support was found for role transition theory. The interview data provided evidence that these twenty principals had learned to deal with role transitions and the effects of role strain. Cognitive restructuring and environmental factors were important factors which moderated the effects of role strain. Experience, tenure in position, traditions of trust among staff, congruence of personal leadership style with role changes, school-level autonomy, and leadership and support from the superintendent and school board affected role strain intensity. The data also revealed that restructuring had resulted in a change in how these principals viewed their own leadership in schools: from managers in charge to facilitators on call.

Socio‐economic position and housing tenure in Finland 1971–85

This article analyses the development of socio‐economic differences in housing tenure in Finland between 1971 and 1985. The home‐ownership rate of fanners and entrepreneurs was clearly higher than that of wage earners. In employee groups theliome‐ownership rate was low in the early 1970s but increased rapidly. Much of the change was due to the declining proportion of employees renting employer‐provided dwellings. Among workers the proportion of renters decreased less than in the other groups. The worker home‐owners differ from the employee home‐owners in the respect that they are more often house‐owners than condominium‐owners. Only the “lowest” social groups remained overrepresented in renting. This development can be interpreted as increasing segregation of renting. The home‐ownership rate followed the social hierarchy more clearly at the end than at the beginning of the period.

Retirement Migration and its Consequences in England and Wales

ABSTRACTAnalyses are presented of data from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) Longitudinal Study; a record linkage study in which one per cent of the 1971 Census population has been followed up using routinely collected demographic data. The data set includes the 1981 Census records of sample members. The results show that between 1970–1 and 1980–1 there was a fall in migration in the retirement age groups. In both periods there were differentials in rates of migration, particularly between counties, according to variables such as tenure, economic position and Social Class. Tenure, marital status and economic position were together good predictors of male retirement migration 1970–1 but not of 1980–1 migration. The drop in migration rates between the two periods was greatest among the younger retired and owner occupiers.

Holding Financial Assets as a Risk Response: A Portfolio Analysis of Illinois Grain Farms

This article explores the possible gains in risk efficiency for the total farm unit from formulating farm portfolios with different proportions of farm and financial assets. The results of a risk programming model for a representative Illinois cash grain farm indicate that low correlations between returns on farm assets and financial assets could reduce the relative variability of the farm's rates of return on assets by 15% to 25%, compared to holding farm assets alone. Extensions of the analysis should account for the effects of asset liquidity, taxation, tenure position, and capital structure.

An investigation of age-related factors in the age-job-satisfaction relationship.

Most researchers have found a positive linear relation between age and job satisfaction. We attempted to account for this relationship by measuring variables that had been proposed to be causal factors. Subjects were 496 city and county managers working in Florida. Potential explanatory variables were (a) job congruence (the difference between what managers prefer and what they perceive they have in a job), (b) internal-external locus of control, and (c) related demographics-age, salary, organizational tenure, position tenure, and organizational level. Multiple regression analyses found that job congruence and work locus of control accounted for almost all of the variance in the age-satisfaction relationship. This study supports the job change hypothesis, which proposes tha older workers get more of what they want out of work.

SEX DIFFERENCES IN JOB SATISFACTION: A RE‐EXAMINATION1

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that observed sex differences in job satisfaction are due not to the influence of sex per se, but rather to the effects of several variables which covary with sex. Biographical and job satisfaction (Job Descriptive Index) data were obtained from 154 male and 326 female state government employees. Significant observed differences (male greater than female) in satisfactions with promotions and work “washed out” when the effects of age, education, tenure in organization, tenure in present position, and four cross‐product variables were held constant through analysis of covariance. However, a nonsignificant observed difference (female greater than male) in satisfaction with pay was greatly magnified (to significance) through analysis of covariance. The hypothesis received only partial support, since a significant difference in overall job satisfaction remained after the effects of the covariate variables were partialled out. Alternative explanations for the reversal in the direction of the difference in overall job satisfaction are discussed.

The Part-Time Game

More and more frequently the Africanist who wins a tenure track position (hereafter termed a “real job”) is the one who offers something besides an impressive area expertise. Prestige universities are rarely hiring, and the few jobs opening up nowadays are usually at four-year colleges and two-year institutions which cannot, or firmly believe they cannot, accomodate full-time Africanists however much they may want African offerings in their programs. Faced with declining numbers of majors and insistent administrative demands for high body counts, or Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE) students, humanities and social science departments and divisions are looking for versatility in the personnel they hire. Teachers must be able to handle both general education courses attractive to underclassmen and a wide range of electives which will simultaneously challenge majors and attract non-majors looking for courses to fill out their schedules. Successful candidates to such positions have often overcome an academic Catch 22 publicized in many job advertisements—applicants seeking their first real job “must have one or two years prior full-time teaching experience”—by playing the part-time game, which has in recent years taken on many of the attributes of formal internship programs in other professions. For all the game’s drawbacks, the candidate for a real job who has played the part-time circuit well enjoys a major advantage over competitors who have not played it at all or who have played it badly, for a few very strong recommendations from superiors at places where a person has taught part-time can put that candidate in the running even for real jobs advertised as demanding prior full-time experience.

The Part-Time Game

More and more frequently the Africanist who wins a tenure track position (hereafter termed a “real job”) is the one who offers something besides an impressive area expertise. Prestige universities are rarely hiring, and the few jobs opening up nowadays are usually at four-year colleges and two-year institutions which cannot, or firmly believe they cannot, accomodate full-time Africanists however much they may want African offerings in their programs. Faced with declining numbers of majors and insistent administrative demands for high body counts, or Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE) students, humanities and social science departments and divisions are looking for versatility in the personnel they hire. Teachers must be able to handle both general education courses attractive to underclassmen and a wide range of electives which will simultaneously challenge majors and attract non-majors looking for courses to fill out their schedules. Successful candidates to such positions have often overcome an academic Catch 22 publicized in many job advertisements—applicants seeking their first real job “must have one or two years prior full-time teaching experience”—by playing the part-time game, which has in recent years taken on many of the attributes of formal internship programs in other professions. For all the game’s drawbacks, the candidate for a real job who has played the part-time circuit well enjoys a major advantage over competitors who have not played it at all or who have played it badly, for a few very strong recommendations from superiors at places where a person has taught part-time can put that candidate in the running even for real jobs advertised as demanding prior full-time experience.

Farm Tenancy Distribution and Trends in the United States

At the present time only half of the acreage that is in farms in the United States is farmed by its owners, the owners working personally with or without assistance of family and hired labor. The other half is farmed by managers or by tenants who have to lease part if not all of the land they use. This was the situation in I935 and also in 1930 but a greater proportion of the acreage in farms was formerly owneroperated. In 1900 almost three-fifths, 59%, of the acreage in farms was farmed by its owners. These figures relative to acreage suggest that the tenure position of the American farmer is weak and is on the decline. This is a conclusion that may be confirmed by statistics of farms by number and kind, and also by what is known about the investment interests of farmers and others in farm real estate.