Liz Barnes and Gaynor Lea‐Greenwood
The paper aims to establish how fast fashion is translated and communicated in the retail store environment.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to establish how fast fashion is translated and communicated in the retail store environment.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive paradigm and inductive methodology made use of participant observation and key informant interviews.
Findings
Whilst efficiencies in the supply chain have facilitated fast fashion's success, centralised control structures have meant that these efficiencies and flexibilities have not been translated into the retail store environment. Marketing communications activity is evident in relation to aspects of fast fashion, for example, through the use of “hero pieces” as identified in this research, however, availability and retail presence must support the fast fashion proposition.
Research limitations/implications
The paper has a UK focus where fast fashion is well established, therefore generalisations relating to other fashion markets may not be appropriate.
Practical implications
Retailers may have interest in the findings to gain competitive advantage in fast fashion.
Originality/value
Academic research on fast fashion research is still in its infancy, however this paper provides some unique insights into the phenomenon which may add to the nascent literature.
Details
Keywords
Audrey M. Dentith and Nancy V. Winfrey
This chapter provides a theoretical framework that links ecojustice education to concepts of eco-intelligence and collective social intelligence. This theoretical framework…
Abstract
This chapter provides a theoretical framework that links ecojustice education to concepts of eco-intelligence and collective social intelligence. This theoretical framework informs the creation of innovative university academies that highlight sustainability and the revitalization of the cultural commons. The culture commons or those intergenerational face-to-face practices are evident in all communities worldwide. These practices include craft knowledge, the knowledge of growing, cultivating and preparing food, medicinal practices, and other forms of knowledge that are largely non-monetized and do not contribute to environmental degradation. Academies are sustained multiday events that incorporate the knowledge and work of activists, community members, faculty, and students who come together for the purpose of providing a platform for the discussion and resolution of critical environmental issues. Two examples are provided and details about the construction and execution of these events are provided.
Details
Keywords
Since the mid-2000s, there has been a marked resurgence in Hollywood action films featuring older male heroes, predominantly showcasing stars ranging from their mid-fifties into…
Abstract
Since the mid-2000s, there has been a marked resurgence in Hollywood action films featuring older male heroes, predominantly showcasing stars ranging from their mid-fifties into their seventies. This ‘geri-action’ cycle – a less-than-kind label that combines geriatric and action – has revitalised the careers of aged action stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A core element of the cycle, beyond action franchise revivals and all-star ensembles featuring stars from the 1980s and 1990s, has been the emergence of late-career action turns by ageing Hollywood actors in globally successful French-produced, Hollywood-style action films. Part of a larger trend in French cinema towards the production of films in a distinctly commercial register, the ‘globalised’ aesthetic of French action film cannily mimics Hollywood action film style and aesthetics. These French-produced geri-action films are the roots of the cycle, represent some of its biggest box office successes and have transformed the career of several acclaimed recent-to-action Hollywood stars, exemplified by the prolific late action career of Oscar-nominated actor, Liam Neeson, most notably across three Taken films (2008–2014, EuropaCorp). Despite this, these French-produced geri-action films have predominantly been examined as a Hollywood and American phenomenon.
Geri-action quickly became synonymous with 1980s Hollywood action cinema's white male ‘hard bodies’, who are still widely understood to diagnose national anxieties and social ills – and violently embody their so-called “cures”. These French geri-action films similarly feature protagonists who forcefully struggle against perceived threats to the cultural position of traditional (white) masculinities and professional and paternal redundancy. Yet they also showcase deep-seated European anxieties about the threat of porous borders, immigration and social change, presaging a later shift in the cycle in Hollywood. Focusing on films that have received comparatively less scholarly attention, Taken 2 (2012), 3 Days to Kill (2014) and The Commuter (2018), this chapter examines the productive confluence of lower budget French-produced geri-action films and their ageing recent-to-action stars. These films depend on their stars to fortify their globalised Hollywood aesthetic and the stars' personae permit efficiencies such as clipped pacing. At the same time, budget constraints enhance the action performance of recent-to-action stars as unadorned, visceral and authentic-feeling. The films often stage fight sequences in confined, everyday spaces of work and tourism with ageing heroes who must creatively ‘make do’ with objects available to them. Equally, stunt coordination and choreography, editing and sound design make ageing and less experienced action performers appear to move faster and hit harder. Taken together, French-produced geri-action and its recent-to-action stars have transformed not only who stars in ‘Hollywood’ action cinema but who produces it.
Details
Keywords
Collette Ford, Heidi Hanson, Colby Riggs and Elizabeth Stewart-Marshall
The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in eight preservice teachers’ professional identity and the factors contributing to such changes during a four-week block…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in eight preservice teachers’ professional identity and the factors contributing to such changes during a four-week block practicum.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study design was used and the data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with preservice teachers and their mentors, reflective journals and observation checklists. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data.
Findings
The findings showed high levels of confidence and development of teacher voice by the end of their four-week block practicum. The findings also suggested that positive mentoring relationships contributed to changes in the preservice teachers’ teacher identity.
Research limitations/implications
Despite focussing on a relatively small number of preservice secondary teachers during the first four-week practicum of a single teacher education program at a Western Australian University, this research highlights the need to maintain constructive mentoring relationships with preservice teachers to provide positive influences on their professional identity. In order to facilitate this, preservice teacher education programs should provide thorough training for mentor teachers.
Originality/value
This work highlighted the crucial role of mentor teachers in creating positive impacts on preservice teachers’ professional identity, such as development of their confidence and teacher voice. This paper provides useful insights for researchers, mentor teachers, and preservice teacher education policy developers.
Details
Keywords
While some researchers have considered commodity chain analysis to be a tool or method that is “innocent of theory,” or can be combined with any theory, this paper argues that it…
Abstract
While some researchers have considered commodity chain analysis to be a tool or method that is “innocent of theory,” or can be combined with any theory, this paper argues that it has a specific set of theoretical investments. It argues that commodity chain analysis emerged in response to criticisms of the determinism, economism, and western bias in earlier development paradigms. Drawing on recent scholarship, it argues that researchers have turned to the study of commodity chains to provide situated and contingent accounts of global political economy that are historically specific, sensitive to culture and meaning, and attentive to subaltern perspectives.
Anna Joy Stickley and Kelly J. Hall
Occupational therapists are increasingly working in organisations outside of the public sector. UK government policy over the past decade has promoted health and social care…
Abstract
Purpose
Occupational therapists are increasingly working in organisations outside of the public sector. UK government policy over the past decade has promoted health and social care provision by social enterprises. The purpose of this paper is to examine the compatibility of occupational therapy practice and a social enterprise environment, within the UK and questions if this approach may enhance experiences of social inclusion for people who use these services.
Design/methodology/approach
Case study methodology was used with eight social enterprises in the UK. Data were collected through: semi-structured interviews, formal organisational documents, and field visits and observations. Interviews were conducted with 26 participants who were occupational therapists, service users and social entrepreneurs/managers. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
Occupational therapists experienced job satisfaction, professional autonomy and were able to practise according to their professional philosophy. Service users valued support with: employment, routine, social relationships, and developing a sense of identity, particularly outside of a medical model definition. To a degree therefore, people using these services claimed socially inclusive benefits. Challenges with funding social enterprises, however, impacted occupational therapy delivery in some cases.
Research limitations/implications
The majority of social enterprise research is drawn from case study methodology; however, this was the most appropriate research design to gain greatest insight into a small but developing phenomenon. Further research into occupational therapy practice within social enterprises is required, particularly on the effectiveness of returning to work and social inclusion.
Social implications
Social enterprises can provide therapeutic environments to promote recovery and social inclusion which is also compatible with occupational therapy practice.
Originality/value
This is the first known national research into occupational therapy provision in social enterprises within the UK, which evidences a compatibility within occupational therapy practice within a social enterprise environment and the benefits of this.
Details
Keywords
Judie Gannon, Angela Roper and Liz Doherty
The international hotel industry's growth has been achieved via the simultaneous divestment of real estate portfolios and adoption of low risk or “asset light” market entry modes…
Abstract
Purpose
The international hotel industry's growth has been achieved via the simultaneous divestment of real estate portfolios and adoption of low risk or “asset light” market entry modes such as management contracting. The management implications of these market entry mode decisions have however been poorly explored in the literature and the purpose of this paper is to address these omissions.
Design/methodology/approach
Research was undertaken with senior human resource executives and their teams across eight international hotel companies (IHCs). Data were collected by means of semi‐structured interviews, observations and the collection of company documentation.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that management contracts as “asset light” options for international market entry not only provide valuable equity and strategic opportunities but also limit IHCs' chances of developing and sustaining human resource competitive advantage. Only where companies leverage their specific market entry expertise and develop mutually supportive relationships with their property‐owning partners can the challenges of managing human resources in these complex and diversely owned arrangements be surmounted.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of this paper is the focus on the human resource specialists' perspectives of the impact of internationalization through asset light market entry modes.
Originality/value
This paper presents important insights into the tensions, practices and implications of management contracts as market entry modes which create complex inter‐organisational relationships subsequently shaping international human resource management strategies, practices and competitive advantage.
Details
Keywords
Cardell K. Jacobson and Darron T. Smith
In this chapter, we use the concepts of emotional labor or emotion work to examine the experiences of transracial families – white families rearing Black adoptees. We focus on the…
Abstract
In this chapter, we use the concepts of emotional labor or emotion work to examine the experiences of transracial families – white families rearing Black adoptees. We focus on the emotion work done by the parents to inculcate and develop positive racial identities for their adoptive children as their adoptees experience racial mistreatment. We also use the concept of white racial framing to examine strategies for effectively coping with racial mistreatment. African Americans have more emotion work than the members of dominant group because of their status as stigmatized minorities in American society. African Americans adopted by white families have even greater emotion work because they tend to have the extra burden of living in predominately white communities where there are fewer people of color to serve as positive role models in the socialization process.
Details
Keywords
Since Bram Stoker’s tale of Count Dracula struck a chord with a sensation-hungry public, vampires have remained a popular part of horror in cinema. Since the turn of the…
Abstract
Since Bram Stoker’s tale of Count Dracula struck a chord with a sensation-hungry public, vampires have remained a popular part of horror in cinema. Since the turn of the millennium, vampires have now become a mainstay of horror TV. Programmes like True Blood (2008–2014) and The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017) have propelled the vampire into the home.
This chapter will investigate the problematic, but often sympathetic relationship between vampires and humans in The Vampire Diaries.
Details
Keywords
This chapter investigates the recent surge of social media (mis)use in horror films including The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Unfriended (2015) and #Horror (2015) and how young…
Abstract
This chapter investigates the recent surge of social media (mis)use in horror films including The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Unfriended (2015) and #Horror (2015) and how young women’s relationship to social media in these films often pillories females for existing under, and delighting in, an anonymous, ubiquitous gaze. In these narratives, women are slut shamed both in the plot and through the threat of social media’s panoply of screens, sur- and selfveillance. In my discussion, I will utilize feminist film theory including the writings of Laura Mulvey, Linda Williams and Barbara Creed, while also including contemporary cultural criticism from writers and journalists like Nancy Jo Sales and Leora Tanenbaum to explore the horror genre from a more contemporary, multi-discourse perspective. The technology in these films serve as harbingers, intimating the figurative and literal dangers to come for their female protagonists, ultimately suggesting that the horror in these films is the medium itself and the patriarchal social media culture that these devices cultivate.
Details
Keywords
Over 30 years have passed since the enactment of Title IX, the legislation that required all schools receiving federal aid to provide “equal opportunity for both sexes to…
Abstract
Over 30 years have passed since the enactment of Title IX, the legislation that required all schools receiving federal aid to provide “equal opportunity for both sexes to participate in interscholastic, intercollegiate, intramural, and club athletic programs” (East, 1978, p. 213). Since 1972, girls’ and women's sport participation has increased in high schools, colleges and universities, the Olympics, and professional sports. Researchers interested in the study of gender and sport have raised critical questions and conducted empirical research concerning the meanings of masculinity and femininity, the implications of sport participation, the meanings of heterosexuality and homosexuality, gender equity, and media coverage of sports (Dworkin & Messner, 2002). One persistent theme in the literature on girls’ and women's sport participation is the connection between athleticism and femininity. Historically, researchers have used the role conflict perspective or the apologetic defense strategy to examine girls’ sport participation. In this chapter, I analyze athleticism and femininity on a high school basketball team using a third framework.
Using a mobilities framework, this book aims to tell the stories of sexual harassment on the London Underground not as a single, exceptional moment, but as part of women’s wider…
Abstract
Using a mobilities framework, this book aims to tell the stories of sexual harassment on the London Underground not as a single, exceptional moment, but as part of women’s wider urban experiences and movements through public urban life. The way this book is structured attempts to mirror and portray this. As such, the chapters that follow this one take such an approach: the before, the during and the after. Prior to this, two chapters are dedicated to the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings that are employed to make sense of women’s experiences. In this introductory chapter, I overview the issue of sexual harassment on public transport more broadly. I situate the phenomenon in its social context of a global endemic of violence against women, before zooming in to ‘set the scene’ of the London Underground. I will briefly outline the conceptual framework I use to understand sexual harassment on the London Underground and summarise how situating the issue at the axis of mobilities, rhythms, space and time, allows new insights into how sexual harassment happens ‘on the move’. I then summarise the methodological approach taken for the research that constitutes this book, including a consideration of researcher positionality and ethics. I also make a case for the value of ‘messy’ qualitative, reflexive approaches, and how this is essential for disrupting normative and ‘taken for granted’ conceptions of sexual harassment. I argue that, by giving space to the complexity of women’s in-depth, kinetic stories, we are rewarded with a deeper understanding of the anticipation, manifestation and reaction to incidents of sexual harassment on public transport.