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The purpose of this paper is to assess whether additional information about a community’s level of social capital can help to better predict a return rate from that area, in order to better target resources to improve mail-in responses.

Two-sample two-stage least squares is used to apply determinants of six different measures of social capital from the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey to observations in the Decennial Census (DC) which are then aggregated to the census tract level. The probability of a census tract having a high level of each social capital measure is estimated. Multivariate regression is used to identify the importance of high community social capital for predicting census mail-in return rates.

The analysis reveals that a higher level of trust contributes the most to increasing return rates and a high level of political activism decreases return rates. Additionally, higher levels of sociability contribute negatively to DC return rates, which is consistent with sociability being linked to a more insular (i.e. family and friends) focus.

While contributing statistically significantly to the predictability of census tract response rates, the cost of acquiring measures of social capital for each census tract may not to be viewed worth the gain in predictive power.

Higher levels of trust contribute positively to survey participation, suggesting that any social, economic or political environment that diminishes trust will undercut civic engagement. Political activism and (insular) sociability decrease participation.

This paper combines non-public and public data to obtain measures of social capital along more dimensions than are typically studied, and finds that not all types of social capital are related to feelings of social integration in the same way.

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the importance of individual social capital characteristics in determining wages, both directly through their valuation by employers and indirectly through their impact on individual occupational choice. We find that a person’s level of sociability and care for others works through both channels to explain wage differences between social and nonsocial occupations. Additionally, expected wages in each occupation type are found to be at least as important as a person’s level of social capital in choosing a social occupation. We make use of restricted 2000 Decennial Census and 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a proactive public policy approach to complement relatively reactive existing policies addressing gender‐related employment disparities in the USA, and to provide an initial empirical illustration of the proposal.

The paper provides a conceptual application of theories of total quality management (TQM) to the topic of gender‐related employment disparities, followed by an empirical illustration using US Current Population Survey data and a gender equal employment opportunity (EEO) scorecard.

Using the TQM framework, company outliers were conceptualized on the EEO scorecard as “special” causes of economy‐wide equal employment variation and the industries in which companies are situated as “common” causes. The paper identifies two underperforming industries on gender‐related employment outcomes: Mining and Construction, and Transportation, Communication and Utilities.

Further conceptual work on the application of TQM to gender disparities in employment is recommended. Also, the study considered broad industry categories; future research should refine these categories further.

It is recommended that US enforcement agencies incorporate industry considerations more explicitly into their activities. Employer insights may be beneficial to improving equal employment opportunity performance at the industry level.

The application of TQM theory to the topic of gender‐related employment disparities is a novel approach that may motivate new public policies.

Universities are large, complex and highly hierarchical organisations with deeply engrained gendered values, norms and practices. This chapter reflects on the experiences of two universities in initiating structural change towards gender equality as supported by the TARGET project. A common aspect thereby is the lack of a national policy in higher education and research providing specific support for implementing gender equality policies. The process of audit, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the first gender equality plan (GEP) in each of these universities was conceived as a first step in a long journey, providing a framework for engaging different institutional actors and fostering reflexive, evidence-based policy making. The analysis deals with reflexivity and resistance and seeks to draw lessons from bottom-up and top-down experiences of GEP implementation. It is the result of shared reflection between the GEP ‘implementers’ in the two universities and the team who provided support and acted as ‘critical friends’.

This paper uses a representative sample of U.S. workers to examine how self-employment may reduce work-life conflict. We find that self-employment prevents work from interfering with life (WIL), especially among women, but it heightens the tendency for life to interfere with work (LIW). We show that self-employment is connected to WIL and LIW by different causal mechanisms. The self-employed experience less WIL because they have more autonomy and control over the duration and timing of work. Working at home is the most important reason the self-employed experience more LIW than wage and salary workers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of Indonesian management accountants (MAs) regarding the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – ASEAN economic community (AEC), an integration initiative in Southeast Asia, and its impact on their profession. More specifically, this study presents the perceptions on Indonesian MAs’ capabilities for facing challenges and opportunities in the AEC era, as well as identifies skills needed and training or development programmes that could support the achievement of qualification standards.

A survey was distributed and administered by using a convenience sampling method, resulting in 191 valid responses. The respondents’ answers were then analysed quantitatively using the descriptive and regression analysis.

It was revealed that the top skills needed in the AEC era, as identified by respondents, are soft skills, technical accounting capabilities and language skills. Language capabilities and soft skills were deemed as the most lacking, and training in these areas is considered important. Skill and knowledge upgrades are needed to reap the benefits of the opportunities offered by AEC to Indonesian businesses, especially among professional accountants who will join a bigger market not limited by borders.

Findings from this study can guide executives and national leaders in developing the capacity and capability of Indonesian MAs to face competition in the ASEAN region.

Although research on the AEC has been conducted in previous studies, analysis of the impact on the MA cohort has not been much explored, which creates the research gap this study wishes to fill.