This study introduced an extension of importance-performance analysis by further including the performance of competitors. It demonstrated its value by applying it to a national sample of fee-for-service health care users. This study found that inappropriate strategies may result from importance-performance analysis that excludes a dimension of competition. In particular, the two attributes, availability of both physicians and emergency services, were found to be "high" on importance and "good" on fee-for-service performance. From the basic classic importance-performance approach, a relatively passive strategy would be recommended for each of these attributes. When also considering competition, however, a more appropriate, vigorous strategy of head-to-head competition clearly emerges.

Using a subsample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), this study (N = 2,471) provides evidence in support of social capital and socialization theories. Intergenerational transmission of civic engagement activities was found to occur through mechanisms such as parental religiosity and voluntarism. Using multinomial logistic regression analysis, correlates of four types of civic engagement were examined: mixed motivation voluntarism (voluntary participation in activist and nonactivist activities, n = 401), exclusively activist (n = 109), exclusive voluntarism (n = 652), and as the referent non-civic minded (no voluntary participation in either activist or nonactivist activities, n = 1,309). Parental voluntarism, socialization, religious participation, education, and presence of children were found to be robust predictors of mixed motivation voluntarism; parental devotion, presence of children, and race/ethnicity, of exclusive activism; and parental religious affiliation and fundamentalism, socialization, and religious participation, self-perceived sense of trustfulness, presence of children, and race/ethnicity of exclusive voluntarism.

This study uses a national longitudinal sample of women to examine variations in the likelihood of entering, staying, and reentering self-employment by level of educational attainment. The study found that each likelihood increased with increasing levels of education. This finding supports the notion that less-educated women may face financial or human capital constraints which limit their business pursuits. The study also identified to what extent differences in each likelihood contributed to the overall difference in the likelihood of being self-employed between more- and less-educated women. Of the three, differences in the likelihood of entry accounted for most of the overall difference in the likelihood of being self-employed between the more and less educated.

This study uses data from the Mature Women's Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME). The sample (n=1,412) comprises self‐employed, wage‐earning, and nonemployed women whose cumulative employment is measured by employment status between 1976 and 1995 and whose health status was measured in 1976 and in 1995. Three multivariate regression models, one for each type of employment status, are used to control for sociodemographic and for other factors thought to influence health status in 1995, including health status in 1976. The study finds that unemployment resulted in a significantly negative health status in 1995 compared to women of similar age, while the effect of working for wages results in significantly positive health relative to women of similar age. Self‐employment had no statistically significant effect on health status in 1995, thus indicating that the health of the self‐employed, while better than that of the nonemployed, substantially was worse than that of wage earners.

This study examined the influence of socioeconomic status, perceived discrimination, and sense of mastery over one's life on the health status of a sub-sample of a US cohort of youth (N = 969). When controlling for a variety of social characteristics and personal attributes, only sense of mastery over one's life, measured by the Pearlin Mastery Scale, affected physical and mental health statuses. Perceived discrimination affected only mental health status, while SES over the life course affected only physical health. Findings affirmed the efforts of professions like social work that stress self-determination and empowerment enabling individuals to enhance their own social functioning and improve conditions in their communities and in society at large. They also suggested that in regard to mental health advocacy efforts to decrease health disparities can find social justice related grounds based on gender.