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The “Contingency Model” of leadership effectiveness postulates that effectiveness of a group is contingent upon the relationship between leadership style and the degree to which the situation enables the leader to exert his influence. This investigation was an attempt to explore the usefulness of the theory as a guide to the study of leadership in public elementary schools. As predicted by the model, the favorableness of principal‐staff relations was a significant situational mediator of leadership effectiveness. In elementary schools where principals were well supported by teachers, a task oriented leadership style was associated with effectiveness; however, in schools where principals were less well supported by teachers, a relationship oriented leadership style was associated with effectiveness.

This paper represents an editorial for this special issue on “Surviving post‐socialism”, with a particular geographical focus on countries located in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In total, six articles are included in this special issue, which seeks to contribute to the existing body of literature on surviving post‐socialism in general and in particular, across all the papers included, paying particular attention to the role of informal economic relations and practices, as fundamental parts of wider economic relations across the FSU and CEE regions. Whilst the papers included in this special issue demonstrate the richness of empirical data which can be generated, also they demonstrate how authors, located in different academic traditions – sociology, political economy and anthropology – can clearly contribute to debates regarding the role of informal economic relations in a number of theoretical and conceptual ways.

This paper attempts to synthesise the main contributions of the six papers within the special issue and in particular seeks to engage with core questions relating to how the empirical findings in these papers contribute to relevant wider theoretical and conceptual debates.

This paper finds that there is a high degree of linkages between the six papers, in particular relating to the issue of the intermeshing of formal and informal economic spheres.

The value of this paper is that it provides an introduction, overview and clear and concise summary of the remaining six papers in this special issue on “Surviving post‐socialism”, outlining the special issue's core aims and contributions.

This study examines chronic illness, disability and social inequality within an exposure-vulnerabilities theoretical framework.

Using the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a preeminent source of national behavioral health estimates of chronic medical illness, stress and disability, for selected sample years 2005–2014, we construct and analyze two foundational hypotheses underlying the exposure-vulnerabilities model: (1) greater exposure to stressors (i.e., chronic medical illness) among racial/ethnic minority populations yields higher levels of serious psychological distress, which in turn increases the likelihood of medical disability; (2) greater vulnerability among minority populations to stressors such as chronic medical illness exacerbates the impact of these conditions on mental health as well as the impact of mental health on medical disability.

Results of our analyses provided mixed support for the vulnerability (moderator) hypothesis, but not for the exposure (mediation) hypothesis. In the exposure models, while Blacks were more likely than Whites to have a long-term disability, the pathway to disability through chronic illness and serious psychological distress did not emerge. Rather, Whites were more likely than Blacks and Latinx to have a chronic illness and to have experienced severe psychological distress (both of which themselves were related to disability). In the vulnerability models, both Blacks and Latinx with chronic medical illness were more likely than Whites to experience serious psychological distress, although Whites with serious psychological distress were more likely than these groups to have a long-term disability.

Several possibilities for understanding the failure to uncover an exposure dynamic in the model turn on the potential intersectional effects of age and gender, as well as several other covariates that seem to confound the linkages in the model (e.g., issues of stigma, social support, education).

This study (1) extends the racial/ethnic disparities in exposure-vulnerability framework by including factors measuring chronic medical illness and disability which: (2) explicitly test exposure and vulnerability hypotheses in minority populations; (3) develop and test the causal linkages in the hypothesized processes, based on innovations in general structural equation models, and lastly; (4) use national population estimates of these conditions which are rarely, if ever, investigated in this kind of causal framework.

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Hazel Kyrk, one of the first women economists at the Economic Department of the University of Chicago and author of A Theory of Consumption (1923), conducted groundbreaking research for the Bureau of Home Economics of the US Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Kyrk made a considerable contribution to the development of standards for a “decent living,” the Consumer Price Index, and the conceptualization of what would later turn into the definition of the poverty line. This chapter evaluates Kyrk’s use of eugenic notions of gender and race that were widely used in Kyrk’s day. This chapter shows that eugenic reasoning impacts Kyrk’s theoretical work only superficially but does structure her research on consumption standards through her focus on the white middle-class family as the unit of analysis for consumer behavior. This chapter also makes clear that the American Institutionalist approach to consumer behavior, rather than marginalized and side-tracked due to a lack of theoretical progress, was relegated to the margins of economics science together with the research of women economists into Home Economics departments and policy research at government institutions.

An employee who is eligible to make a complaint for unfair dismissal has to prove that he has been dismissed by the employer if the employer contests that the employee has in fact been dismissed. If the dismissal is not contested, all the employee has to do is to show that he has been dismissed. This constitutes the first stage of the proceedings in an industrial tribunal.

The magnitude of the informal economy has been estimated using either indirect measurement methods that employ proxy indicators or small‐scale household surveys. This paper seeks to provide an analysis of the findings of the first direct survey in an advanced market economy of national business opinion on its magnitude and impacts.

This paper analyses the findings of a UK survey of business opinion on the prevalence of the informal economy in their sector and its impacts on their businesses, namely the Small Business Service's (SBS) 2004/05 Small Business Survey of 7,505 small businesses.

The finding is that 14 per cent of UK small businesses view themselves as negatively affected by the informal economy, with businesses estimating on average that 8 per cent of trade in their sector is conducted on an off‐the‐books basis. The sectors most affected by the informal economy are land transport, construction, the motor vehicle trade, and hotels and restaurants, with fledgling enterprises and businesses in peripheral regions most affected.

This survey records only business perceptions of the size of the informal economy in their sector rather than directly collecting data on the amount of informal work that businesses conduct.

This paper demonstrates that it is wholly feasible to conduct business surveys on the size and impacts of the informal economy and recommends modifications to the SBS survey method to improve data collection.

This paper reports the findings of the first survey in an advanced economy of national business opinion on the size and impacts of the informal economy.