Journal of Applied Sociology
Year:2020 | Volume:30 | Issue:4 (76) |Papers Count:10

Introduction: According to the second demographic transition theory, the contemporary societies are facing an increasing range of emerging forms of family, which is the central focus of the present study. One of the main characteristics of the past centruries so-called ‘ Golden Age’ was the importance of family and the stability of marital union. On the contrary, contemporary societies are witnessing substantial challenges in family ties and marital union. Some of these family challenges are the increasing proportion of unmarried individuals, growing age of marriage, substantial fall in birth and fertility rate, the increasing trends of divorce, childlessness, one-child family, single-parent family, and cohabitation. In particular, this article presents research-based evidence to explore patterns and determinants associated with attitudes toward emerging forms of family identified by childlessness, one-child family, single-parent family, and cohabitation...

Introduction: Family caregivers around the world care for the patients alongside the professionals with a difference that they do not get paid. Since the role of caregiving often happens suddenly and without prediction, the family might not have a predetermined plan and the available resources cannot be matched to their needs. This creates a pressure for caregivers and currently has affected many people around the world. According to the Global burden of disease study, it is estimated that around 15 percent of the world population suffer from some type of disabilities. It is also estimated that around 93 million children are living with severe or moderate disability (cited in WHO, 2011). In the majority of the cases, mothers are the primary caregivers. The aim of this research was to study the experiences of mothers of children with disability and the main question was whether and how mothers experience compassion fatigue and/or compassion satisfaction...

Introduction: The environmental crisis seems to be one of the major challenges that mankind faces in the current century. The term environmental behavior comes from contemporary conditions in which social studies investigate the environmental behavior. Explaining the environmental behaviors of individuals is one of the important issues in environmental sociology. Environmental behavior is a behavior that a person encounters in the environment. Individuals of each society, in terms of their particular social-cultural context and their personality, have different approaches toward the environment. These behaviors may be quite positive, pro-environmental or vice versa, totally negative, and contrary to the environment. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, human activities and environmental damages have become very important. The world which faces more than six billion people in the future should be sensitive to this issue. Recently, environmental issues have social meaning and also have cultural-social roots. Shiraz city, as one of the cities that has involved in numerous environmental crises, such as the water crisis, the crisis of the destruction of historical gardens, the massive production of garbage and all kinds of other crises, should be given special attention. This study aims to examine the sociological factors contributing to the environmental behavior among Shiraz citizens...

Introduction: Accepting the reality of women's employment as a social phenomenon is evident, as, with many other social phenomena, this phenomenon has many positive and negative consequences. One of the implications of maternity employment is its impact on the educational achievement of children. In this study, this issue has also been addressed. The change in the role of women in the society leads to changes in the family organization, in this way, it is necessary to explain and predict the positive and negative consequences of family change and, if necessary, provide appropriate strategies. This issue is also important because, after recognizing the factors affecting the educational achievement of children, relying on the impact of mothers' employment, managers and planners lead to appropriate decisions and policies. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors influencing the 4th-grade students' mathematics achievement such as father's education, mother's education, gender, educational resources at home and at school, with emphasis on mothers' employment. Hence, in view of the objectives of this study, the key questions are whether the fourth-grade children with working mothers have more achievement than their counterparts with non-working mothers? Is the success of students in mathematics influenced by parenting education, gender, and educational resources at home? What are the most important determinants of the educational achievement of the children who are studying at 4th-grade in mathematics? What is the effect of schools (school location in terms of urban and rural) on the development of the 4th-grade children in mathematics?...

Introduction: This research studies the impact of economic behaviors on trust (and distrust) as a socio-cultural indicator of the behavior of the participants of an economic partnership. It also tries to analyze the role of the time variable in changing interpersonal trust. There are series of conventions, rules, and habits within a society that shape economic transactions and facilitate the maintenance of trust. These series are vital for the boom of commodity exchanges or the emergence of co-operatives. The relation between social context and economic transactions is multi-layered and multifaceted and is a key factor in explaining the economic dynamics of a region or country. Also, economics consider the contract as the business commitment of individuals and organizations to each other; however, without internal and external control restrictions, commercial contracts do not have full operational guarantees. Hence, theorists believe that strong trust is one of the best alternatives to costly contracts. Trust can also be known as a backup and even a strong alternative to the law, and also as a contract monitoring tool. Trust is influenced by various variables, including the time factor. Scientists believe that trust changes in frequent interactions over time and place. The main question of this research is how interpersonal economic behaviors ultimately lead to the breakdown of business and economic treaties. Also, how do the unregistered relationships, especially interpersonal trust, distrust, and interest-seeking, manifest themselves in the behavior of businessmen? And what is the role of time in trust changes? In this research, the trust had been separated on 3 levels based on Lewicki and Bunker’ s approach. First, Calculus-based trust (CBT) that operates on cost-benefit dichotomy. As long as the cost of cutting off economic activities is more than short-term benefits, the contract may be ongoing. Second, knowledge-based trust (KBT) is based on the ability to understand others to predict their behavior. Even if prediction conditions are not available at times, repetitive interactions and multiple relationships will increase the perception of individuals from the other side. Third, identification-based trust (IBT) that is based on increasing the identification of the other side. Accordingly, individuals are inclined to recognize the desires, intentions, and values of each other because they know that they have common interests and it is very important in maintaining interaction and communication to identify whether the interests of individuals are protected by the other side. In addition to the levels laid out in the Lewicki and Bunker’ s theory, affection-based trust (ABT) was also presented by McAllister which was historically ignored by researchers. McAllister claims anger as an example and believes that, as a rule, anger is one of the main emotional experiences arises in the process of breaking trust. Therefore, in all interactions, including economic interactions, emotional connections are found in interpersonal relationships...

Introduction: Elite migration can be defined as a kind of phenomenon or social issue that has both positive and negative effects and, under specific conditions, it results in desirable advancement of the developing countries. Considering negative effects, elite migration causes the country to face problems in terms of science, research, economics, politics and sociology, and the development cycle will be interrupted. On the other hand, taking the desirable results into consideration, the short-term migration of elites to developed countries make them scientifically richer and once they return to the country, they can effectively contribute to the development of the economic cycle and motivate the human resources inside their country. Therefore, the overall purpose of this research is to design an elite gene retention model emphasizing graduates of higher education and Ministry of Health...

Introduction: Although the modern business world is rapidly expanding from many competitive aspects, it unfortunately pays little attention to issues such as organizational virtuousness (Moshabaki Esfahani & Rezaei, 2014: 22). Organizational virtuousness and organizational spontaneity as a moral and transcendental aspect of the organization have been somewhat understated. In this research, we try to introduce these two aspects of the organization. One of the higher aspects in an organization that is not related to spontaneity is organizational virtue (Rego, Ribeiro & Cunha, 2010, p. 216). It has been considered recently due to its effective role in organizations and especially its impact on employee performance (Cameron, Bright, & Caza, 2004, p. 780). In an organization which is perceived as virtuous, employees believe that their organization has attractive values and beliefs that may incorporate their organizational membership into their social identity. These social identity processes can play an important role in explaining the relationship between perceived organizational virtuousness (POV) and employee outcomes – if one considers their association with employee outcomes (Blader & Tyler, 2009; Cole & Bruch, 2006; Restubog et al., 2008; Riketta, 2005). The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect effects of POV on organizational spontaneity. The assumed indirect effect is investigated through the social identity perspective. As such, organizational identification, pride and respect are examined as mediators of the POV-spontaneity relationship. The following is a summary of the variables: organizational spontaneity is a construct capturing extra role and active positive employee behaviors, and is different from that of organizational citizenship behavior which does not exclude role-prescribed and passive employee behaviors as organizational spontaneity does (George & Brief, 1992). Social identity is a multidimensional concept incorporating a cognitive component; that is, identification and two evaluative components, which according to Tyler and Blader (2003) are pride and respect. Pride reflects employees’ evaluation of the status of their group (e. g. organization), and respect refers to employees’ evaluation of their own status within their group (e. g. organization) (Blader & Tyler, 2009). Organizational virtuousness “ is intimately tied to what is good to and for human beings” (Cameron, 2003, p. 50). Virtuousness has inherent values and is not subservient to the desire to gain profits (Cameron & Winn, 2012). Organizational virtuousness refers to a constellation of virtues in the aggregate, as organizations, similar to individuals, display more than one virtue (Cameron & Winn, 2012). Material & Methods: The current research is an applied one by means of purpose, and descriptive and correlational in terms of data gathering method. The research population consists of the staffs of Lorestan University. Using Cochran formula, a sample of 220 individuals was selected and participants were selected by stratified random sampling. The sampling method is random. Gathering the data was conducted by literature review and field study. To attain model fit and test of the hypotheses, structural equation modeling method and the third version of smart PLS were applied. Discussion of Results & Conclusions: To measure reliability, composed reliability and Chronbach's alpha were exploited which both were appropriate. To designate validity, the average variance was used and implied that the current research verifies the model goodness of fit. The quotients of R2 and Q2 criteria were used to examine the structural model fit. The amount of R2 and Q2 for the constructs of respect, pride, social identity and organizational spontaneity are, respectively, 0. 288, 0. 462, 0. 657, 0. 663 and 0. 345, 0. 281, 0. 289, 0. 292. Considering fitness of measurement and structural components of the model, the overall model fit was extracted by index of GOF=0. 40 that is the strong fitness of the research model. Once the T amounts are in the range of more than 1. 96, the related parameters are significant and the hypotheses are verified (Tenenhaus, & Amato, 2010). The study accumulates further evidence that treating employees with care and respect can bring benefits to organizations. Perceiving organizational virtuousness makes employees identify their organization and view organizational successes as their own. Thus, they become more willing to benefit the organization. Employees should feel that the organization creates an environment of organizational virtuousness. When employees perceive that their managers consistently work to promote social betterment and have positive human impact, they are more likely to identify the organization and be more willing to support it. Organizations should incorporate specific goals to facilitate and promote virtuous acts in organizations. Managers and employees who consistently promote integrity, compassion, and/or forgiveness should be rewarded, and virtuous acts should be communicated.

Introduction: In the recent decades, lack of consideration for the environmental effects of various industrial activities, services, and production is the most important factor threatening the human and natural environment in Kerman, Iran. Other environmental issues of this society are reports by official bodies of Kerman on water shortages in Qantas caused by excessive extraction of ground waters, destruction of natural fields, deterioration of rivers into sewers caused by irresponsible behavior, closing down a number of factories, industrial and mining sites by the Department of Environment for failure to meet the standards, hunting of the local wildlife, rangeland and forest fires, excessive use of private and outdated automobiles and their environmental effects, excessive water consumption, excessive use of water, natural gas, and electricity during peak hours, and so on. Numerous issues in combination with the absence of systematic data in this regard aggregates the need for research in this area. Therefore, considering the environmental crisis and frequent droughts as well as new phenomena, including dust storms, it is essential to discuss the transformation of environmental culture in the city of Kerman. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to define the relationship between the environmental ethics and social capital and the environmental culture of the citizens of Kerman in the past decade as well as the present time. Also, the study attempts to determine the predictor variables of the environmental culture for the three various aspects of awareness, attitude, and behavior and for the environmental culture as a whole...