Intercountry adoption Abstract Intercountry adoption is a global phenomenon. The countries of origin, children adopted abroad mostly come from, have a lot in common. Intercountry adoption comes about only if the child cannot be adopted in the country of origin because of the principle of subsidiarity. That is why it is important to consider, which conditions cause impossibility of domestic adoption and try to eliminate these conditions, as well as conditions causing leaving a child. It is a fight against poverty, drug addiction, alcoholism, insufficient funding of social and legal care of children or racism, like in the Czech Republic, where mostly children of Roma ethnics, whom Czech applicants for adoption do not want to adopt, are adopted abroad. The countries of origin have these social conditions (and others) in common. High number of children adopted abroad is a sign of a certain dysfunctions in the society. In the Czech Republic, Office for Legal Protection of Children with its registered office in Brno is a central body arranging intercountry adoption within the meaning of Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. Intercountry adoption means a possibility of growing up in a family to a child, so the cooperation of international community in this area...

In the last 15 years it has been widely debated whether or not the United States should adopt IFRS. Convergence efforts in the 21st century have limited the distinctions between U.S. GAAP and IFRS, but significant differences still exist. This paper takes an in-depth look at the most important remaining differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS, and examines both sides of the argument on adoption. Finally, I conclude that the U.S. should continue to use and refine its own standards.

Children enter the Child Welfare System for a variety of complex reasons. These reasons often point towards parents’ inability to provide appropriate protection and safety for their children. After removal, many children are placed in foster homes of relatives, non-related extended family members, group homes, and county or private foster homes. A child who is removed from their original home is likely to experience difficulties in the areas of attachment with caregivers and other adults throughout their development. This study examined the attachment styles of 37 foster and adoptive parents in three separate private Foster Family Agencies in both San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. Foster and adoptive parents were assessed through the Relationship Questionnaire through a tool, which examined each parent’s level of attachment security. The perspectives of foster and adoptive parents on their child’s relational attachments were assessed through The Behavioral Assessment System of Children, Second Edition (BASC-2) across seven subsets (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004).

Adoption is a common occurrence within the field of social work, yet adoptees and their adoptive parents grapple with a multitude of challenges unique to this population. The needs of these children and families are continually scrutinized by social service professionals prior to adoption, but less is known of the needs and services available to this population after adoption is finalized. This study addressed the question: Does adoptive families’ use of post-adoptive resources increase positive adoption outcomes? Ten adoptive parents participated in semi-structured interviews as part of this study. Most participants felt they had access to adequate services, and struggled with issues common to all types of parenthood, adoptive or biological. Two issues which parents identified as needs, and which provide direction for social work practice, were: normalizing their families’ experiences; and navigating conversations regarding adoption and birth families with their children.

E-banking services in Ethiopia are increasing among low-income populations; however, with over 53 million mobile service users countrywide, more than 85% of the population still lacks access to banking services. A single case study was used to explore e-business strategies that bank managers use to promote the adoption of electronic banking services to the unbanked population in Ethiopia. The extended resource-based view of strategy served as the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected from interviews with 12 experienced bank managers from leading commercial bank in Ethiopia. Data were analyzed using coding techniques and word clustering, with the help of qualitative data analysis software. After member checking and methodological triangulation, data were sorted into 5 themes including ensuring leadership, creating accessibility, fostering customers' acceptance, leveraging unique features and organizational resources, and building an e-banking ecosystem. The result showed that bank managers need to develop a customer-centric organizational posture and they should focus to build e-banking ecosystem inside and outside the country so that they can realize their vision to become global competitors. The findings from the study may contribute to positive social change for the unbanked communities in Ethiopia by informing bank managers options of e-banking adoption strategies thereby improve the convenience and accessibility of banking services.

Nous cherchons à étudier les banques adoptantes de la banque en ligne dans l'industrie bancaire en Tunisie. Notre problématique consiste à déceler les facteurs susceptibles d'accélérer et de freiner l'adoption de la banque en ligne dans le secteur bancaire en Tunisie. La revue de la littérature que nous avons consultée nous a permis de dégager un ensemble de variable : organisationnelle, individuelle et structurelle. Notre méthodologie de recherche nous a permis d'expliciter la posture interprétativiste de notre recherche et la démarche abductive à laquelle nous avons procédé. Notre stratégie d'accès se caractérise par une méthode qualitative basée sur l'étude de cas. Nous avons mené cinq études de cas dans le secteur bancaire et guidées selon les principes de saturation et de réplication. Notre population se compose principalement des banques qui ont adopté l'innovation de la banque en ligne. A la suite de cette exploration théorique et empirique, nous avons pu mettre en évidence l'importance de certaines variables (la concurrence, les avantages perçus, la comptabilité organisationnelle...) liées à ces dimensions ainsi que d'en rejeter d'autres (les coûts d'adoption, la complexité...). De même notre recherche nous a permis de déceler certaines variables qui freinent l'adoption des innovations technologiques. Toutefois, nous avons pu dégager un aspect important de certaines variables liées à ces différentes dimensions sur d'autres afin de dégager un cadre spécifique au secteur bancaire tunisien. / This paper seeks to explore banks adoptive of online banking in the banking sector in Tunisia. Our objectives are to identify factors that may speed up or impede the adoption of the online banking in the banking sector in Tunisia. The review of the literature that we consulted has allowed us to identify a set of variable : organizational, individual and structural. We have explicit interpretative posture of our research and abdicative approach we have conducted. Our strategy is characterized by a qualitative method based on case study. Five case studies were conducted in the banking sector and guided according to the principles of saturation and replication. Our population consists mainly on banks which have adopted the "online banking" innovation. As a result of this theoretical and empirical exploration, we were able to highlight the importance of some variables (competition, perceived advantage, compatibility organization...) related to these dimensions and to reject others (costs of adoption, the complexity...). Moreover, our research allowed us to identify variables that impede the adoption of technological innovations. However, we were able to identify an important aspect of certain variables linked to these different dimensions on others to identify a specific framework of Tunisian banking sector.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate child support orders made after legislative adoption of child support guidelines by comparing them to child support orders made prior to uniform guideline adoption to determine if child support orders had increased, decreased, or remained the same; to determine if child support orders were adequately covering the cost of raising children; to determine if child support guidelines had resulted in similar treatment of comparable cases; to determine if judges/hearing officers were deviating from the guidelines; and to determine the reasons for deviation. There was no statistically significant difference found between the mean child support order made under the legislative guidelines and the mean child support order made prior to standardized guideline adoption. When the mean child support order made under the uniform guidelines was compared to the 1990 poverty standard, no statistically significant difference was found. However, the mean child support order under the legislative guidelines was found to be significantly less than both the 1990 USDA estimate of the cost of rearing children and Espenshade's (1984) updated estimate of expenditures on children. No significant difference was found between the rate of compliance/noncompliance with the guidelines by judicial district. However, a statistically significant difference was found to exist between counties. Results indicate that there is still a great deal of variation in the amount of child support being ordered under standardized child support guidelines.

Between 1960 and 1975 more than 38,000 mothers lost babies to adoption in New South Wales, Australia, a pattern which was replicated in other Western societies. Various theories were proposed for women's exnuptial pregnancies which resulted in their babies being taken for adoption, culminating in the discursive construction of the unmarried mother as 'mad, bad, or stupid'. Until the 1990s, the voices of women whose babies had been taken for adoption had been silenced by the social order which adoption practices served. It is through their voices, and through the voices of other women who remember the era of the adoption bounty, that another meaning for the loss of a baby to adoption, through the process of semanalysis, has been sought. This thesis is informed primarily by the writings of the French postmodern feminist, Julia Kristeva. In addition the works of the post-structuralist philosopher, Michel Foucault, the German socialist feminist, Frigga Haug, and the American feminist psychologist, Michelle Fine are used as an heuristic lens through which to examine the phenomenon of losing a baby to adoption. A qualitative research methodology, incorporating feminist praxis and feminist multiple methods, has been employed. The framework for this thesis is that of a double helix which depicts two orders, the symbolic and the semiotic, which intertwine and intersect. The symbolic order is analogous to the public social order which through its hegemonic discourses constructed the unmarried mother and adoption. The semiotic order refers to the personal space where the voices of women are heard through counterdiscourses. At the scission of the two helical strands sits the thetic phase, a point of rupture by the semiotic into the symbolic where the voices of mothers are expressed through their poetry and art. Through the process of semanalysis, the tensions which simultaneously resist and challenge the semiotic and symbolic orders are exposed: tensions between discourse, discipline and docility; power and knowledge; sexuality and silence; power of / as sexuality; power and resistance; and resistance and / as silence. Furthermore, I examine the manifestations of mothers' resistance to silence, and their resistance as activism. My concluding analysis involves the notion of abjection as it binds together the threads of the loss of a baby to adoption: abjection as entrapment; abjection as infertility; and abjection as / in reunion. For mothers who lost babies to adoption, their loss finds meaning in the ultimate horror: it is abjection.

This thesis responds to the current climate of inquiry and complaint around past practice in the work of religious, charitable and service based organisations. It does not attempt to deal with issues of abuse or of illegal or unlawful practice but rather proposes an alternative approach to inquiry into past practice. In focussing on the learnings for one organisation whose practice was under inquiry the study presents a response that is life giving, growth promoting and the first step to healing and reconciliation. In June 1998 the Honourable Faye Lo Po’, MP instructed that the Standing Committee on Social Issues inquire into Adoption Practices in NSW 1950 -1998 (the Inquiry). The Sisters of St Joseph, a religious Congregation in NSW chose to participate in the Inquiry. They had been entrusted with the care of single pregnant women since 1937 at St Margaret’s Hospital in Sydney and St Anthony’s Home in Croydon. Recommendation 17 of Releasing the Past, the final report of the Inquiry suggests that an apology from organisations involved in adoption services be forthcoming. This recommendation proved to be the catalyst for this study. No real apology exists without reconciliation. Reconciliation is possible only when both sides of the story are told and understood. This thesis seeks to understand not just both sides of the story but the changes and the learnings that have taken place in the provision of care to single mothers over the eventful fifty years embraced by the Inquiry. Using the metaphor of voice as discourse, dialogue and response the study examines the discourses that informed attitudes to the single mother in the fifty years leading up to the Inquiry; listens to the events of the Inquiry and identifies the research question which focuses on inquiry into past practice and the consequent understanding of organisational and individual learnings. The evolutionary nature of organisational learning provides a framework for understanding the learnings that have taken place. Using case study methodology the study situates the ministry in the changing social, religious and professional culture of the time. It examines the evidence of the mothers who told their stories to the Inquiry and sets up a dialogue between this evidence and the recollections of the Sisters involved in the ministry. While the discourses and the voices of the mothers have been explored in other publications the author was unable to access any other studies that examined issues through the eyes of those who were deemed to have been perpetrators of the actions under inquiry. It is hoped that the study may serve as the first step towards understanding the stories of both groups of women – for this is the first step towards reconciliation. It is further hoped that it provides a model of learning that enables organisations to understand and appreciate the richness of their learning history – especially when the catalyst for that understanding is complaint and inquiry.

The adoption of e-learning technologies in campus universities has not realised its potential for meeting the learning needs and expectations of 21st century students. By modelling university learning and teaching as a complex adaptive system, this thesis develops a new way of understanding and managing the adoption of new learning technologies in campus universities. The literature on learning and teaching in higher education indicates that lecturers??? ability to innovate in their teaching is constrained by tacit and discipline-specific educational knowledge. Introducing new methods and technologies into mainstream university teaching requires explicit review of educational knowledge, and requires support from departmental and institutional organizational systems. Research on organizational change in other contexts, such as manufacturing industry, has used complex adaptive systems modelling to understand the systemic interdependence of individual strategies, organizations and technologies. These models suggest that the integration of new e-learning technologies into mainstream campus university teaching will involve corresponding change processes. Part of this change requires the linking up of diverse disciplinary perspectives on learning and teaching. The thesis develops a conceptual framework for researching university learning and teaching as a complex adaptive system that includes learning technologies, people, and their organization within a university. Complex adaptive systems theory suggests that the capacity of a campus university to adapt to new e-learning technologies will be reflected in patterns in the strategies of those lecturers who are early adopters of those technologies. A context-specific study in the University of New South Wales used cognitive mapping to represent and analyse the strategies of a group of 19 early adopters of e-learning technology. These early adopters were participants in a cross-discipline Fellowship programme intended to develop their ability to act as change agents within the university. Analysis of the maps gathered before and after the Fellowship, triangulated with data on the Fellows??? participation in organizational change, leads to a new way of modelling how university learning and teaching systems, including their technologies, adapt within a complex and changing higher education context.