Search results

Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) was an eccentric 18th Century English genius of many interests. He was the leader of a group of social and political reformers known as the philosophical radicals that included John Stuart Mill. While Bentham never held a government position, his writings influenced many who did. Bentham’s ideas and works touch on a variety of disciplines including: administrative management, criminal justice, economics, law, organizational theory and decision making, philosophy, political science, public administration, public policy, social welfare, and sociology. Bentham was a wordsmith adding such terms to the popular lexicon as: "minimize," "maximize," and "rational." He was also the first person to use the term "international." This article looks at Jeremy Bentham’s contributions in three areas: organizational theory and decision-making, public policy analysis, and administrative management. The article argues that although his ideas and works have been dismissed as passé in the post 1960s era of selective social consciousness and heightened political correctness, Bentham has much to say that is still important and relevant today

The purpose of this study is to investigate contemporary pre-service English teacher education in the UK and the transition, for one individual, from pre-service into early-career English teacher. The investigation explores how standards-based education reforms are narrowing the scope of professional practice in UK schools, especially in regard to the creativity of teachers and students.

The authors use critical autobiography (Haug, 1992; Miller, 1995; Rosen, 1998) and dialogic storytelling strategies (Doecke and Parr, 2009; Parr et al., 2015), that are grounded in Bakhtinian (1981) theories of language, education and creativity.

The essay critically illustrates how standards-based reforms are narrowing the professional practice of English teachers in secondary classrooms in England and compares this with one account of pre-service teacher education in which prospective teachers are taught to appreciate the situated nature of teaching and learning and the power of creative practices to engage students in their learning and development.

The critical and creative use of dialogic storytelling strategies allows the authors to present rigorously contextualised accounts of English teacher education and English teaching in England. The reflexive accounts complement the increasing numbers of studies that are showing the injurious effects of standards-based education reforms on English teaching and learning in schools.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which a sample of US-based higher education institution’s (HEI’s) climate targets and associated climate action planning efforts align with the definitions of and practices associated with science-based targets (SBTs) that are typically used to organize corporate climate efforts. This analysis will be used to explore similarities and tease out differences between how US-based HEIs and corporations approach sustainable target setting and organize sustainable action.

The degree of intersection between a sample of HEI climate action plans from Ivy Plus (Ivy+) schools and the current SBT initiative (SBTi) general corporate protocol was assessed by using an objective-oriented evaluative approach.

While there were some areas of overlap between HEI’s climate action planning and SBTi’s general corporate protocol – for instance, the setting of both short- and long-term targets and large-scale investments in renewable energy – significant areas of difference in sampled HEIs included scant quantitative Scope 3 targets, the use offsets to meet short-term targets and a low absolute annual reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

This paper unites diverse areas of literature on SBTs, corporate sustainability target setting and sustainability in higher education. It provides an overview of the potential benefits and disadvantages of HEIs adopting SBTs and provides recommendations for the development of sector-specific SBTi guidelines.

This paper aims to articulate strategic dilemmas faced by a Chief Executive of a highly successful company and how such dilemmas were resolved.

The case is based on a semi‐structured interview with Mr Jeremy Darroch – Chief Executive of BSkyB – and analysis of documentary evidence.

It is often difficult to implement strategies that simultaneously yield high organic growth rate, innovation, and a healthy balance‐sheet. The paper sheds light on how Sky has met this challenge.

The research offers a unique insight into the views of a principal strategist and articulates the background to offer context, however, because of its design the findings are not generalisable.

Very few articles offer insight into the thinking of those with principal responsibility for design and delivery of strategy. This paper offers such an insight based on a detailed interview with a highly successful Chief Executive.

This paper aims to present an iterative approach to creating a collaborative design-and-play skatepark videogame for a children’s museum physics exhibit. Intended for children of 5-8 years old and accompanying adults, this interactive tabletop game encourages players to build a skatepark and then skate through it with a skater character. This case study describes the authors’ design perspective shift to make the game’s possibilities for tinkering more “perceptible.”

This paper presents a case-based design narrative that draws on the project’s iterative playability testing with parent–child dyads and reflections from the design team’s endeavors. This analysis draws on methodological elements adapted from agile game development processes and educational design-based research.

The initial game prototype inhibited the collaborative tinkering of parent–child dyads because it used interface abstractions such as menus, did not orient to the task of tinkering with skatepark design and did not help players understand why their skatepark designs failed. Subsequent game versions adopted blocks as a metaphor for interaction, gave players explicit design goals and models and provided players with more explicit feedback about their skater’s motion.

Museum games that provide tinkering experiences for children are an emerging medium. Central concerns for those designing such games are presenting multiple modes of play for different players and contexts and clearly and quickly communicating the possible activities and interactions. The design approach in this study offers players the opportunity to – at both short and long timescales – take up game-directed challenges or explore the skatepark physics through self-generated goals.

This article focuses on group work with children using a board game format. Combining the principles of group work and board games helps to engage and motivate children and adolescents to address and work through their difficulties. Lifegames are a series of six therapeutic board games developed for group work with children and adolescents who encounter adversity in their life as a consequence of bereavement, family break up, poor relationships, bullying, chronic illness or obesity. The games facilitate the understanding and disclosure of the complex feelings experienced by children and young people when they are confronted with traumatic life events. The games encourage and assist the participants to obtain and maintain behavioural change. Lifegames are a means to assist professionals in their group work with children and adolescents.

This paper aims to investigate the use of the bias ratio as a possible early indicator of financial fraud – specifically in the reporting of hedge fund returns. In the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, numerous hedge funds were liquidated and several cases of financial fraud exposed.

Risk-adjusted return metrics such as the Sharpe ratio and Value at Risk were used to raise suspicion for fraud. These metrics, however, assume distributional normality and thus have had limited success with hedge fund returns (a characteristic of which is highly skewed, non-normal return distributions).

Results indicate that potential fraud would have been detected in the early stages of the scheme’s life. Having demonstrated the credibility of the bias ratio, it was then applied to several indices and (anonymous) South African hedge funds. The results were used to demonstrate the ratio’s scope and robustness and draw attention to other metrics which could be used in conjunction with it. Results from these multiple sources could be used to justify further investigation.

The traditional metrics for performance evaluation (such as the Sharpe ratio), assume distributional normality and thus have had limited success with hedge fund returns (a characteristic of which is highly skewed, non-normal return distributions). The bias ratio, which does not rely on normally distributed returns, was applied to a known fraud case (Madoff’s Ponzi scheme).

The effectiveness of the bias ratio in demonstrating potential suspicious financial activity has been demonstrated.

The financial market has come under heightened scrutiny in the past decade (2005 – 2015) as a result of the fragile and uncertain economic milieu that still (2015) persists. Numerous risk and return measures have been used to evaluate hedge funds’ risk-adjusted performance, but many fail to account for non-normal return distributions exhibited by hedge funds. The bias ratio, however, has been demonstrated to effectively flag potentially fraudulent funds.

By engaging in critical literacy, participants theorized Blackness and antiblackness. The purpose of this study was to have participants theorize Blackness and antiblackness through their engagements with critical literacy.

The authors used a youth-centered and informed Black critical-race grounded methodology.

Participants’ unique and varied revelations of Blackness as Vitality, Blackness as Cognizance and Blackness as Expansive Community, served to withstand, confront and transcend encounters with antiblackness in English curricula.

This paper provides a model for how to engage Black youth as a means to disrupt anti-Black English education spaces.

This study provides a foundation for future research efforts of Black English outer spaces as they relate to English education. Findings in this study may also inform existing English educator practices.

This study theorized both the role and the flexible nature of Black English outer spaces. It defined the multi-ethnic nature of Blackness. It proposed that affirmations of Blackness sharpened participants’ critical literacies in Black English outer spaces as a transformative intervention to anti-Black English education spaces.

Examines the potential for adapting offices of the pre‐IT period to the business needs of the 1990s in a pilot study of space policy, taking in aspects of IT and the concept of the waking (as opposed to the working) week, where productivity is, unconventionally, tied to neither space nor time. This involves reversal of hierarchy, short lines of communication and near‐elimination of “churn” through the interchangeability of staff, the whole producing a considerable saving in costs. Points up the value of recognizing the fundamental mechanics which relate available space to business operation.

The study aims to consider the multiple affordances of micro-credentials as a means of creating agency and making a positive contribution to the human experience, through the voices of practitioners and stakeholders.

Multiple case study, narrative inquiry, using Reflexive Thematic Analysis to identify themes was the approach used. Qualitative Descriptive Research is employed to present and analyse the re-told tales.

Micro-credentials possess numerous characteristics which coalesce to create multiple affordances, which are identified as follows: Micro-credentials as: Urgent and Emergent, Critical and Transformative, Promoting Equity, Access and Participation, and Servicing Traditional Qualifications. These concomitant multiple affordances possess the core affordance of micro-credentials making a difference to the lives of learners. The more powerful affordances a micro-credential has, the more powerful it is and the greater the difference it can make to the human experience.

Practitioners will arguably do well to consider these multiple affordances in the future development of micro-credentials. Equally, those working in urgent or emergent spaces, in critical or transformative areas of practice, those engaged in a social justice environment or in the re-development of curricula, would do well to consider micro-credentials as a means of creating agency in the development and recognition of knowledge and skills. This study has focused on the voices of practitioners and their storied professional lives. However, the learner voice is limited to one and the employer voice is absent. Future research will benefit from a consideration of the employer voice in the development of micro-credentials as well as the voice of the end user, the learner.

It is hoped the study will assist practitioners in the judicious development of micro-credentials that possess agency and make a positive contribution to the human experience.

It is hoped the study will shed light on how micro-credentials can afford equity, access and participation to priority learners, and to all learners, in the development of cognitively manageable, affordable, time-achievable micro-credentials, that enable learners to see success quickly, whereby encouraging them to further their life-long and life-wide learning journeys.

This study unusually gives voice to practitioners and other stakeholders in the micro-credentials arena. Most studies to date have focused on the potential of micro-credentials. This study considers their actuality and new ways of ‘doing' micro-credentialing based on the voices of experience.