Empowered by information and communication technologies (ICTs), e-commerce has radically transformed the global economic landscape over the past decade. The diffusion of e-commerce so far has mostly been limited to developed countries and has been relatively slow in the rest of the world. To alleviate the digital divide, the United Nations has sponsored research results and given financial support to help developing countries. This dissertation applies growth theory from developmental economics and macroeconomics to analyze B2C e-commerce growth and diffusion across countries. There are two empirical studies in this dissertation. An initial exploratory study proposes three models for the growth of e-commerce revenues for European countries. An endogenous growth model proposes that e-commerce growth in a country is primary driven by internal factors. A contrasting exogenous growth model argues that e-commerce growth in a country is externally driven by leading countries. A third model, a mixed endogenous and exogenous growth model, argues that e-commerce growth is both internally and externally driven. This study tests data for 17 European countries from 2000 to 2004. The findings demonstrate that B2C e-commerce growth is driven by internal factors and external factors from a leading country, in support of the proposed explanatory growth theories. The second empirical study further proposes a hybrid growth-theoretic embedded technology infrastructure theory to investigate the role of Internet-based technology infrastructure in affecting e-commerce growth in a country. Its main purpose is to investigate whether there are simultaneous effects between Internet-based selling technology infrastructure and e-commerce growth. The findings show that there are two-way interactions between e-commerce growth and technology infrastructure. The overall objective of this dissertation is to open up a dialogue about the efficacy of alternative theoretical perspectives that will help to align IS and e-commerce research with theoretical and methodological developments from economic research.

This dissertation explores public attitudes towards criminal punishment in Western societies and seeks to explain why some individuals are more punitive than others. A model of punitiveness with several domains of focus for explaining variation in punitiveness including objective risk of crime, conservative climate, and population diversity at the country level and demographics, conservative worldview and perceptions of crime, law and order at the individual level is tested with data on punitiveness from two multinational surveys using hierarchical logistic regression techniques. Analyses reveal that males, married individuals, and those who are concerned about crime are more punitive. The rest of the findings are specific to the way punitiveness is measured. Individuals younger than age 45, individuals who perceive the police as ineffective and individuals who have been victims of violent crime tend to prefer incarceration for a recidivist burglar. Those who believe in a personal God are more supportive of the death penalty while individuals with higher levels of religiosity are less in favor of the death penalty. Further, individuals who live in societies with more religious heterogeneity and where public belief in a literal hell is more prominent are most likely prefer a prison sentence for a recidivist burglar and individuals who live in countries with higher levels of lethal violence are more in favor of the death penalty. Religious heterogeneity and public belief in hell account for 42% of the variation across Western societies in preference for prison for a repeat burglar while homicide rate accounts for over 75% of the variation in support for capital punishment across Western societies. Conservative religious belief at the contextual level appears to be positively related to support for capital punishment indirectly through the homicide rate suggesting that support for the death penalty may be influenced by the normality of lethal violence in society dependent in part on contextual levels of conservative religious belief. This dissertation enhances the understanding of punitiveness by providing the most comprehensive multi-level study of public punitiveness to date and proves that religious factors, both personal and contextual, are central to understanding variation in attitudes toward punishment. / text

Japan is the longest lived population in the world and has led the world in low mortality for over two decades. The United States, although its GDP exceeds all other countries, has a life expectancy that falls substantially below most other western countries. Taiwan, although it has an emerging economy with rapid aging population, has a life expectancy approaching that of the United States. Previous studies have investigated multiple domains of physical health for elderly Japanese, American, and Taiwanese, but very few studies have compared mortality across these countries and even fewer have examined how mortality and morbidity intersect differently across the countries to influence differences in healthy life expectancy. This dissertation is aimed at filling this gap. Based on studies in the United States and other Western countries, education is increasingly characterized as a "fundamental cause" of health -- with more years of educational attainment associated with better health. Although the association is robust for a variety of health measures and mortality in the United States and other Western countries, studies in East Asia report more modest associations or no associations. Thus, whether the association extends beyond the Western context is less clear. In my dissertation, I investigate these issues in detail. In the United States, the more-educated enjoy longer life expectancy and a compression of mortality comparing with their less-educated counterpart. Here, data from Taiwan and Japan are used to assess whether education has similar consequences in two important non-Western settings. In sum, the findings reveal that: (1) older Japanese people not only have the highest total life expectancy but also have the highest absolute healthy life expectancy in each gender group, (2) older American and Taiwanese people have similar total life expectancy in each gender group, but they have very different health profiles, (3) educational gradients on mortality/health differ across gender and country groups, and (4) within a population, having more education helps maximize lifespan, changes and delays the biological aging process in the different contexts. Overall, the results underscore the importance of international perspective in explicating health disparities, especially educational differentials in health. / text

Past research suggests that the relationship between work hours and work-family conflict is not as strong as expected, suggesting a need to investigate moderators of the relationship. This dissertation explores whether the value placed on time spent in a domain (subjective influence) moderates the relationship between actual time spent (objective influence) and subsequent work-family conflict. Value on time spent in a domain is operationalized as centrality, which draws upon the works of Mead (1934) and reflects the self-ascribed importance of a role identity (Ritzer, 1992). The concept of role-identities originates in sociological theories of identity: Identity theory (Stryker, 1980) and role-identity-theory (McCall & Simons, 1978). This mediated model is tested in a cross-national sample consisting of participants from Sweden and the United States. Sweden and the United States have been chosen because they represent very different public policy conceptions, particularly in approaching the work-family issue. Swedish public policy supports the reconciliation of employment and parenthood while North American public policy supports the male breadwinner model.Results of a field study show that the moderating effect of centrality on the relationship between hours spent and work-family conflict is significant only for high earners. Analyses were also conducted to compare Sweden and the United States with regards to work and family hours, work and family centrality, and work-family conflict. As expected, Americans work longer hours than Swedes. However, there is no significant difference with regard to work-family conflict. Unexpectedly, Swedes reported higher work centrality. Antecedents and consequences of work-family were also investigated. Specifically, daycare satisfaction related negatively to work-family conflict, while work-family conflict related negatively to turnover intentions.

Despite the increase in terrorism research post September 11, 2001, little is known about domestic terrorism though it occurs at overwhelmingly higher rates as compared to transnational terrorism. Although the use of criminological theory and methods to study terrorism has increased recently, there are relatively few terrorism studies within the criminological literature. Drawing upon extant criminological theories of violence among countries, this study uses the recently created Global Terrorism Database to examine the distribution and correlates of domestic terrorism among 72 developed nations between 1970 and 1997. This study examined the following questions. First, do prior established predictors of criminal violence (i.e., economy, inequality, social welfare, political orientation, ethnic fractionalization, population, and pre-existing violence) also predict domestic terrorism at the country level? Second, is the relationship between these macro-structural and cultural variables in the same direction as found in the previously published literature? Using a series of contemporaneous cross-sectional analyses and lagged cross-sectional analysis, the results from this study indicate that there is considerable similarity between the correlates of cross-national homicide and correlates of domestic terrorism. There was considerable evidence for the relationship between population size and overall levels of domestic terrorism. This relationship was robust across short time intervals (1970s), the full time span (1970-1997), as well as in the long and short term lagged analyses (1970-1990 predictors of domestic terrorism in 1991-1997 and 1991-1994 predictors on 1995-1997 domestic terrorism). On the contrary I did not find evidence that large youth populations are significantly related to higher levels of domestic terrorism. Income inequality (GINI) also emerged as a significant correlate of domestic terrorism in the long and short term contemporaneous analyses. Those countries that had higher overall levels of income inequality for the entire time span also had higher levels of domestic terrorism, compared to those countries with low levels of income inequality. Contrary to theoretical expectations yet supportive of prior criminological research, this study found that stronger democracies actually have more domestic terrorism. In particular, those countries with more restrictions placed on executive decision-making power, tend to have more domestic terrorism events, compared to those countries with less restrictive executive decision-making processes. This study concludes with a discussion of the results within the larger criminological literature as well as future avenues of research.

Recent theoretical literature in social policy argued that climate change posed a new risk to the states and called for transformation from a traditional welfare state to an "eco" state. From a theoretical point of view, different welfare regimes may manage environmental/climate change risks in a similar way to social risks. However, not much has been done to explore the issue empirically. To this end, this paper aims to investigate public attitudes towards environmental and traditional welfare policies given that environmental change is a new social risk the welfare states have to address. Do individuals that care for one area also care for the other? That is, do the preferences in these two policy spheres complement or substitute one another? We test these hypotheses both at the individual- and country-level, using data from 14 countries included in all three waves (1993, 2000, and 2010) of the environmental module in the International Social Survey Programme. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between attitudes towards income redistribution (indicator of support for welfare policy) and willingness to pay for environmental protection (indicator of support for environmental policy). Our findings suggest that attitudes in the two areas are substitutes in the total sample, but that the relationship is very small and only statistically significant in some specifications. When we explore country differentials, we observe clear heterogeneity in the relationship, which can be explained by differences in political and historical contexts across countries.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to establish happiness as a sociological research topic and examine the effects of economic inequality and marriage on happiness in cross-national contexts. Following a critical review on previous happiness studies, two cross-national studies and one longitudinal study focusing on Korean data are conducted for this purpose. In the first study, I examine the effects of objective and subjective inequality on happiness across 26 countries. Data from the International Social Survey Program 1999 and the World Values Surveys 1994-1999 are used for analyses. The results indicate that subjective inequality, not objective inequality, has a strong negative influence on happiness. In the second study, I examine the relationship between marriage and happiness across 72 countries, focusing on a comparison of marrieds, cohabitors, and never-married singles. Data from the World Value Surveys 1999-2008 are used for analyses. The results indicate that the relationship between marriage and happiness varies across nations. In the majority of countries, marriage is positively associated with happiness, but there are many countries where the relationship is non-existent or negative. Cohabitors are happier than never-married singles, but only in countries where marrieds are also happier than the never-married singles. Multi-level analyses show that the positive relationship between marriage and happiness is stronger in countries characterized by economic development and secular-rational culture. In the third study, I examine the continuation of the marriage effect on life satisfaction in Korea. Longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study 1998-2008 are used for analyses. The results indicate that the selection effect (i.e., People with greater life satisfaction are more likely to get married.) exists in general but is moderated by the age effect. The increase of life satisfaction caused by marriage is maintained at least for 6 years or more. Thus, the positive relationship between marriage and life satisfaction in Korea is explained by both of the selection effect and the causal effect of marriage.

Intimate partner violence (IPV), including physical, psychological, and sexual violence towards a partner, is a human rights violation that is associated with the development of a multitude of short- and long-term physical and mental health problems (WHO, 2013). IPV survivors are at greater risk of developing mood, anxiety, and trauma- and stressor-related disorders (García-Moreno et al., 2005). Public health guidelines recommend screening for IPV in mental health settings (WHO, 2013). However, most mental health practitioners do not routinely assess for IPV in their practice (Howard et al., 2010). Lack of training in how to assess for and respond to IPV has been identified as an important barrier for IPV assessment in mental health settings (Trevillion et al., 2016). IPV-related training has been linked to positive outcomes for clinicians, including higher ratings of perceived knowledge and confidence in addressing IPV (Forsdike et al., 2019). Yet, studies suggest that approximately one quarter to one half of mental health professionals have never received IPV-related training (Murray et al., 2016; Nyame et al., 2013). To address this gap, the WHO advanced a series of evidence-based training recommendations (WHO, 2013). At present, there is a dearth of research exploring the degree to which global mental health providers’ experiences of training resemble WHO guidelines. Furthermore, few studies have investigated factors that contribute to clinicians’ likelihood of participating in IPV-related training, and reasons for obtaining training are not well understood. There has also been no previous research into the relationship between mental health professionals’ experiences of training and their accuracy in correctly identifying IPV. The present thesis, consisting of two studies, sought to assess global mental health providers’ IPV-related training experiences, including factors that influence the probability of participating in training and the relationship between training and diagnostic accuracy. In study 1, mental health professionals’ IPV-related training experiences were surveyed, and factors that may contribute to the likelihood of participating in training were explored (e.g., IPV prevalence, norms, and legislation, and professional experience with IPV). The relationship between IPV-related training and knowledge and experience of relationship problems was also examined; 321 specialized mental health professionals (psychologists and psychiatrists) from 24 countries participated in an online survey. Participants responded to a series of questions regarding the content, duration, and frequency of their IPV-related training based on WHO recommendations, and rated their level of knowledge and experience with relationship problems. Descriptive analyses showed that nearly half of participants (46.9%) had never received IPV-related training. Approximately half of those who received training (49.4%) indicated that their training followed WHO recommendations. Logistic regressions revealed that participants who were from countries with relatively better implemented laws addressing IPV and participants who encountered IPV more often in clinical practice were more likely to have received training. Furthermore, participants who received training were more likely than those without training to report higher knowledge and experience of relationship problems. Findings highlight global challenges with regards to IPV-related training. They suggest that clinicians’ likelihood of participating in training is related to their clinical contact with IPV and the institutional context in which they practice. Study 2 investigated the relationship between IPV-related training and clinicians’ diagnostic accuracy in the context of relationship problems, using the same sample as study 1. Chi-square analyses evaluated relationships between IPV-related training and clinicians’ performance while assessing for clinically significant relationship problems (RPM) in case-controlled vignettes across two study conditions: RPM present (i.e., when the task was to correctly identify RPM) and RPM absent (i.e., when the task was to correctly identify that there was no RPM; normative relationship problems were presented). Results showed that participants who received IPV-related training were more likely to perform better than those without training in the RPM present condition, but not in the RPM absent condition. In the RPM present condition, participants were more likely to respond correctly when their training was more recent and more closely resembled WHO recommendations for training. In the RPM absent condition, a similar percentage of participants with training (60-78%) and without training (45-76%) misclassified normative relationship problems as clinically significant RPM. Overall, findings suggest that IPV-related training is related to improved diagnostic accuracy in the context of relationship problems. WHO recommendations for training are supported.

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Diversity is an inevitable condition of modern societies, in which individuals come into contact with one another with various backgrounds; such as, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, and ideology. My dissertation answers three questions: what are the individual characteristics that influence social tolerance of people?’ What are the important things (education level, economic condition, gender, religiosity, etc.) that hold people in a society together as well as influence them positively or negatively to report social tolerance toward religiously different, racially different, sexually different (homosexuals), and nationally (immigrants) different people? From there, I am also trying to answer, if any, the impact of social intolerance on people’s overall well-being? And finally, I am attempting to explore the impact of the socio-historical developments in three societies (United States, Turkey, and South Africa) on social intolerance attitudes (racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and religious intolerance) of people? Previous studies on tolerance have used samples from either one country or a few countries from a continent. As a result, it remained unclear why some characteristics were significantly associated with social tolerance. Using the World Values Survey, I analyze the association between reporting social tolerance within individual and country level contexts. Additionally, using a historical comparative analysis approach, I explore societal factors that influence people to report social tolerance toward racially different, immigrants/foreign workers, homosexuals, and religiously different people in the United States, Turkey, and South Africa. In my multi-level logistic regression analyses, I find that as educational attainment of individuals’ increases, they are more likely to be socially tolerant toward racially different, immigrant/foreign workers, homosexuals, and those who practice a different religion. Schooling plays the most important role on whether individuals will be socially tolerant or intolerant. At the country level, I find that those who live in highly corrupted countries tend to report lower levels of social tolerance for all dimensions. My findings show that there is a connection between social tolerance, as a type of negative emotion, and individuals health outcomes. Also, my findings show that as social intolerance increases the likelihood of reporting good and very good health and mental well-being decreases.