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This paper uses the example of Austin, Texas to explore the elements of hyper-growth and local culture. Hyper-growth, as defined here, is growth at a pace that exceeds the limits of a city's material infrastructure and threatens the integrity of its social institutions. Such growth is easily evident in the fragile limits of the material infrastructure, including overcrowded roads, crumbling sidewalks and as in the case of the hyper-growth in China, even in the local environment. But hyper-growth also disrupts the social and cultural fabric of a city. In particular, the faster such growth takes place the more local residents seem compelled to search for a past and a history. The search is made all the more problematic because many residents in a city like Austin seem far more concerned about the future than about the past (in contrast to older steady state cities like Chicago). The paper conceptualizes the past in terms of cultural themes, evident in such objects as clothing, music, even pickup trucks, and more broadly the lifestyles of residents. Using these elements it argues for a new way to think about Austin's past in terms of its dominant motif, that of an "outlaw and renegade perspective". This motif and the accompanying lifestyle appear to distinguish Austin from many other cities and, even if jobs may be the over-riding reason for the unending flow of people into Austin today, it is the "outlaw and renegade perspective" - and all that implies -- that seems to sustain the commitment of people to the place. The paper seeks to shine new light on the way people live their lives not just how they work, and thus to move us more deeply into the issues regarding the cultural dimensions of urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given understaffing, lack of recognition, extraordinarily high rates of turnover, low pay and few employment related benefits,direct care work, especially in long-term care (LTC), would seem to have little to recommend it. Very few studies have considered the determinants of direct care workers’ (DCWs) job satisfaction, intent to leave work as a DCW or actual turnover. Qualitative analysis of open response textual data will inform the measurement of this model by directing the researcher to factors identified as important issues in the turnover crisis by organizational informants and DCWs. This study is based on survey data from 986 workers and 30 LTC organizations and an organizational informant’s report as to whether individual workers were still employed at their facility approximately 15 months later. The aim of this study is to understand the relative influence of economic, organizational and individual context on direct care worker job satisfaction, affective commitment (intent to leave) and ultimately on behavioral commitment (turnover) using a multivariate structuralist approach. This paper highlights the importance of organizational culture and individual work values in overall job evaluations and decisions to stay on at a LTC organization. Random effects models are utilized to account for the non-independence created by the clustered sampling design. Results suggest that career opportunities, organizational culture and the work values of individual care workers may be important areas of investigation in future research on the job satisfaction and commitment of DCWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a life-course perspective to in-depth interviews with 34 men and women between the ages of 28 and 35 engaged in contingent commitment practices. This study complements quantitative approaches to dating relationships by helping to elucidate processes of decision-making and provides support for a life-course approach to dating decision-making that takes into account the interweaving of experiences with work, education, and relationship domains. Although these findings are suggestive, I argue that the timing and completion of related transitions must be taken into account as well as ideologies about the relative importance of work and family. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses life history interviews with 75 men and women between the ages 28 and 35 to develop a theoretical model about how young adults construct marital commitment. It locates two distinct yet related dimensions of marital commitment, a value-rational and a practical, and borrows concepts from exchange and identity models of commitment to analyze interpretive processes involved in constructing these two dimensions. Some preliminary comments on the dynamic nature of this model in relation to the life-course, interaction contexts, and gender are articulated and implications of this model discussed. I conclude that one-dimensional views of marital commitment are insufficient and suggest that by attending to both value-rational and practical processes, we gain a better understanding of contemporary variation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports preliminary findings of a qualitative interview study of fifty contemporary white activists. The activists work in three arenas critical to combating contemporary racial discrimination and injustice: education, criminal justice and community organizing/development. The study focuses on tracing the development of their commitment to antiracism and their understandings of their experiences working with people of color and trying to influence other whites. It critiques accounts of racism/anti-racism that focus narrowly either on interests or morality and offers an integrated and developmental model drawn from an analysis of interview data. I find that activists in the study begin to develop their commitment out of a moral impulse that racism is wrong, which often brings them into a value conflict with the surrounding community. Only later, through activism itself do they develop a sense of a direct stake in racial justice which cements their commitment. Relationships with people of color seem to play an important role in activists developing a sense of common identity and shared interests. All of the activists could articulate a moral vision which embeds antiracism in a larger way of life or value-goal and provides a framework for seeing commonality across race. Although the moral frameworks varied, they all upheld a vision for a racially just society in the best interest of all Americans. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a methodological and analytic approach for studying the relationship between personal transition, group association, and political commitment in neighborhood activism. Focusing on a central neighborhood political institution as a heuristic device, I use ethnographic methods to demonstrate how people who initiate participation from distinct social positions in a field of neighborhood relations make use of the same political space through various pathways into and out of group association and political commitment. The result is a highly textured picture of neighborhood participation, which bridges together theories of collective action, group processes, and political commitment through a sociological perspective of individual courses of action. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using in-depth life history interviews with 35 men, this paper examines variation in male commitment to a female partner's autonomy. I ask how and why some men prioritize their own autonomy relative to a partner's while others come to see the two as equally important. In the following analysis, I draw on Connell's (1987) concept of "hegemonic masculinity," Goode's (1999) "sociology of superordinates," and Cancian's (1987) "interdependence" thesis. By untangling the processes by which men become committed to their partner's autonomy, this paper adds to the growing literature on "masculinities" and further illuminates patterns of continuity as well as suggesting avenues for change. I show how and why work and relationship factors shaped the parameters of these men's committed unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unable to require members to pre-pay for services, many voluntary organizations are burdened with affiliates paying little or nothing for their involvement. An extensive research literature has argued that demanding religious congregations increase organizational resources by screening out free-riders. This explanation focuses on membership selection and draws attention to the effects of individual beliefs and commitment. Building on the implications of previous work we argue that congregational requirements do more than screen-out the least committed; they serve to increase the production of those who join. Using multi-level data we find that organizational monitoring and sanctioning interact with individual beliefs and involvement to explain financial giving to religious congregations. We conclude that high organizational demands not only serve to select members who are the most willing to give, they generate organizational properties that increase the contributions of those who join. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a common assumption in both the academic and popular presses, and in society at large, that women's work commitment diminishes after the birth of a child. We assess this assumption as it relates to Becker's human capital theory, gender role theory, Catherine Hakim's preferences theory and its critics, and an "infinite energy" model. We find support for a new way of conceiving work commitment, although marriage decreases work commitment, we find that children actually slightly increase it. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a research program of relational cohesion theory (RCT) and uses it to develop a model of organizational commitment. RCT has attempted to understand conditions and processes that promote an expressive relation in social exchange. An expressive relation is indicated by the degree to which partners perceive their relationship as a unifying object having its own value. It has been argued that such relational cohesion is a proximal cause of various forms of behavioral commitment in a group setting, for example stay behavior, gift giving, and investment. The emphasis on emotions in organizing human activities and transactions is one of the key features that differentiate RCT from other exchange theories.

This research tests Hirschi's social control theory by measuring the effect of the four bonding elements- involvement, attachment, belief, and commitment- on adolescent resilience to delinquency. Previous research measuring these resiliency factors has provided inconsistent findings. The current study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to develop measures for each of the bonding elements and for delinquency, ultimately concluding that although each element contributes significantly to resilience to delinquency, they do not offer a complete explanation. Although adolescents who have not bonded to society are more likely to be delinquent, they are also the most varied in their levels of delinquency, suggesting that bonding alone is an insufficient explanation for adolescent conformity to societal norms. Also, involvement in school activities has mixed findings when controlled for gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of democracy and global society embeddedness on national social development, as measured by child survival rates. The relationships are tested using cross-sectional and panel analyses of a sample of less-developed countries between 1980 and 2000. The results confirm a strong redundancy in the effects of democracy and global society embeddedness. INGO sector ties and democracy result in a greater return in the absence of one another. Embedded autocracies—those autocratic nations with dense ties to global society—exhibit a similar propensity and capacity to foster social development as their democratic counterparts. Results further demonstrate that the redundancy of the two factors is based on their respective contributions to a common, more immediate mechanism of development—a developmental state. Analyses using countries' family planning program effort ratings as a measure of state commitment to and institutional capacity for social development support this hypothesis. Democracy and global society embeddedness appear to serve as alternative pathways to more (social) developmental states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how a more complete incorporation of attribution processes expands understanding of the process of behavioral commitment formation in different types of exchange situations. Current work in exchange theory focuses primarily on affective commitment, relational cohesion, or behavioral and affective commitment and trust. Behavioral commitment is driven by uncertainty reduction. The attribution process leads to perceived trustworthiness, and behavioral commitment. Three types of direct exchange relationships vary in the nature and amount of uncertainty they induce in participants. The development of commitment behavior is initially driven by uncertainty and risk. Uncertainty and risk are directly related to the type of exchange, which in turn conditions the causal attribution of the exchange partner's behavior.

Built upon the literatures of nested group commitment and perceived organizational support, this study investigates team commitment as nested group commitment and perceived organizational support as an integrating mechanism across team commitments. Specifically, this study focuses on how job satisfaction as the key workplace employee emotion plays a differential role for the development of team and organizational commitment. Once the team commitments develop, this study also investigates the perceived organizational support as a mechanism through which the encompassing organization mobilizes team commitments into organizational commitment. Extrapolating the related literatures and theories, the first hypothesis predicts that employee job satisfaction contributes to the team commitment more than the organizational commitment. The second hypothesis predicts that perceived organizational support helps the positive effect of job satisfaction redirected for more organizational commitment. Extending the second hypothesis, the third one predicts that perceived organizational support also helps team commitments to be mobilized for the organizational commitment. The results provide support for the hypothesis 1 and 3. The study discusses the findings in more detail and proposes several managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use of "sacrifice" as a mechanism that enhances commitment in egalitarian intentional communities. Using Kanter's theoretical framework on commitment mechanisms among utopian groups, this works seeks to understand how contemporary communal living groups are using sacrifice to increase member retention. As members seek to justify their dietary and monetary sacrifices through a shared belief of moral superiority over the mainstream culture, they enhance their own ideological reasons for joining as well as solidify their commitment to the group. This research is based on ethnographic data collected in four egalitarian intentional communities in the United States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Hooking Up," or casual sexual intimacy between individuals who have no emotional or relational commitments to each other, is considered normative among many high-school and college-age youth. One of the many advantages of hooking up, according to some adolescents, is that one can fulfill one's sexual desires in a temporary relationship that does not require further investment. Forget the movie, the dinner, the awkward conversations, and the obligation to call again: hooking up is a "string-free" sort of intimacy that leaves barely a dent in young people's wallets or busy schedules. Is this decoupling of love and sexual intimacy as favored by adolescent women as young men? Furthermore, are there gender differences in adolescents' motivations for hooking up? Based on a series of in-depth interviews with seventy-one college students between the ages of 18 and 21 years old and a survey of 280 students in this same age group, this study explores these questions and provides insight into why adolescent women are assuming what was once considered a more masculine perspective on casual sexual relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Church of Scientology is examined as a case study in the formation and maintenance of religious commitment within a religious organization. We ask how the Church of Scientology produces and maintains religious commitment among its members in the face of social stigma and apparently high costs for membership. Drawing from rational choice literature regarding the study of religions, we develop a set of seven indicators whereby religious commitment is formed. We find that Scientology represents a religious movement satisfying a majority of our indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate identity-based factors that influence behavior when first- and second-order status-based expectations conflict. When they do conflict, people tend to abide by second-order expectations more frequently when motives for group interaction are equally weighted (Troyer, Younts, and Kalkhoff 2001). A neglected consideration in previous research on the effect of second-order expectations is the possible effect of identity commitment as a motive for group interaction. As a motive, different levels of identity commitment may influence the choice to abide by conflicting first- or second-order status-based expectations. We theorize that those more committed to their identities are more likely to abide by first- than second-order status-based expectations when the expectations are in conflict. We are conducting a laboratory experiment in which we collect data regarding participants' commitment to undergraduate student identities and then manipulate both status position on the basis of education level and the congruence of first- and second-order status-based expectations. Initial data summaries indicate partial support of hypotheses, however, more data are required to conduct significance test and make well-grounded conclusions. (Additional data collection is scheduled for the coming months.) ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of Americans will marry in their lifetime, and for many, marriage symbolizes the transition into long-term commitment. However, not all Americans can legally marry. In this article, we use in-depth interviews with gays and lesbians in long-term partnerships to examine union formation and commitment-making histories. Using a life course analysis, we examine how couples conceptualize and form committed relationships despite being denied the right to marry. Although previous studies suggest commitment ceremonies are a way to form gay and lesbian unions, we find that long-term couples do not follow normative commitment-making trajectories. We argue that relationships can transition, more ambiguously, to committed formations without marriage, public ceremony, clear-cut act, or decision. For long-term gay and lesbian couples, conceptualization of commitment is structured differently due to their unique social, cultural, and historical relationship to marriage and ceremonies. Such an understanding of commitment-making outside of marriage has implications for theorizing alternative forms of union making. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment from transnational corporations across Southeast Asia provides an opportunity to examine the cross-cultural workplace. Most research on cross-cultural workplace takes place in developed countries, but little has been done on the cross-cultural workplace in developing countries. We examine the extent and determinants of organizational commitment among 959 Thai employees in 10 Japanese and American transplant corporations in the Bangkok area. These data were supplemented with in-depth interviews of Thai, Japanese and US managers in 24 transplant corporations and follow-up interviews. Consistent with the literature, we found higher levels of identification and behavioral commitment among employees of U.S firms. In addition, confiding in one's supervisor was positively related to both identification and behavioral comment in Japanese firms. Finally, females were more behaviorally committed in Japanese firms while males had significantly more identification commitment in U.S. firms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse on voluntary association membership contains two alternative theses. The Commitment Thesis argues that organizational participation creates social bonds that increase membership persistence. In contrast, the Competition Thesis proposes that in a complex social world, participatory demands from other voluntary associations can serve to discourage persistence. Evidence for both theses exists - suggesting the need for a more nuanced understanding of impact of persistence and competitive demands on membership persistence. The purpose of this study is to examine the degree to which members of a one hundred year old yacht club expect to sustain their membership for at least ten years (anticipatory persistence). Four hypotheses are tested: H1. Level of club participation increases anticipatory persistence (Commitment Thesis). H2. The relationship between participation and persistence is mediated by satisfaction with the fellowship afforded by the club (Commitment Thesis). H3. Competitive demands (number of other association memberships) decreases anticipatory persistence (Competition Thesis); and H4. Participation and competitive demands interact in their relationship to anticipatory persistence (Combined Effects Thesis). Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression support all four hypotheses. While both participation and competitive demands affect anticipatory persistence, their effects are not independent of one another. Competitive demands decrease anticipatory persistence only for members whose level of club participation is low. Participation increases persistence through its impact on satisfaction with fellowship only for members who also belong to other voluntary associations. These findings support both the Commitment and Competitive Theses, but suggest a more complex relationship to long-term membership decisions than previously posited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]