The main objective of the present study is to explore whether there are variations in the employment of evaluative language resources by male and female writers. More…
Abstract
Purpose
The main objective of the present study is to explore whether there are variations in the employment of evaluative language resources by male and female writers. More specifically, the study focuses on variations, if any, that can be attributed to difference in gender.
Design/methodology/approach
The study compared and contrasted forty recommendation letters written by male academics to the same number of letters written by female recommenders. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Findings
The investigation of three attitudinal resources in letters of recommendations showed that the most employed resource was the judgment sub-system. The appreciation domain was in the second position, and the least frequent was the affect. The results also revealed no statistically significant variations in attitude sub-systems: Affect and appreciation as the writers in both groups (males and females) employed almost the same options in each. In respect with judgment, however, the analysis explored significant differences between the two sets as male academics used more judgment resources than females.
Originality/value
The main contributions of this study may be as follows: first, it is one of very few studies drawing on the attitude-category of appraisal system, as an analytical tool to examine gender differences in recommendation letters very particularly on the ones written by non-native speakers of English. Second, the gender factor is central in the genre of the recommendation letters and hence researchers should be cognizant of its role as certain variations might be impacted by it. Third, the lists of tokens can be offered as heuristics for academics to have most common words or phrases to use in their letters. Finally, the findings can hopefully bear some important pedagogical implications, very specifically for novice and non-native academic writers of recommendations letters.
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This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and interpreting them as biodiversity accounts produced by an interested party. The authors aim to contribute to the accounting history literature by extending the form of accounting studied to include nature diaries as well as by exploring historical ecological accounts, as well as contributing to the burgeoning literature on accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors’ method involves analysing the content of Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals by producing an 18th-century biodiversity account of species of flora and fauna and then interpretively drawing out themes from the Journals. The authors then provide a Whitean extinction account by comparing current species' status with White's biodiversity account from 250 years ago.
Findings
This paper uses Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals as a basis for comparing biodiversity and natural capital 250 years ago with current species' status according to extinction threat and conservation status. Further the paper shows how early nature diary recording represents early (and probably the only) forms of accounting for biodiversity and extinction. The authors also highlight themes within White's accounts including social emancipation, problematisation, aesthetic elements and an example of an early audit of biodiversity accounting.
Research limitations/implications
There are limitations to analysing Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals given that the only available source is an edited version. The authors therefore interpret their data as accounts which are indicative of biodiversity and species abundance rather than an exactly accurate account.
Practical implications
From the authors’ analysis and reflections, the authors suggest that contemporary biodiversity accounting needs to incorporate a combination of narrative, data accounting and pictorial/aesthetic representation if it is to provide a rich and accurate report of biodiversity and nature. The authors also suggest that extinction accounting should draw on historical data in order to demonstrate change in natural capital over time.
Social implications
Social implications include the understanding gleaned from the authors’ analysis of the role of Gilbert White as a nature diarist in society and the contribution made over time by his Journals and other writings to the development of nature accounting and recording, as well as to one’s understanding and knowledge of species of flora and fauna.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to analyse and interpret nature diaries as accounts of biodiversity and extinction.
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Marcella Barbosa Miranda Teixeira, Laila Lidiane da Costa Galvão, Carolina Maria Mota-Santos and Luana Jéssica Oliveira Carmo
This article aims to present aspects related to women’s personal life and work illustrated in the TV series Most Beautiful Thing (Coisa Mais Linda, in Portuguese).
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to present aspects related to women’s personal life and work illustrated in the TV series Most Beautiful Thing (Coisa Mais Linda, in Portuguese).
Design/methodology/approach
To this end, a film analysis was carried out considering the first season of the TV series Most Beautiful Thing, and to analyze the data, qualitative content analysis was used according to Bardin (2006).
Findings
The analysis showed that women’s struggles were and are distinct. While white women are fighting for the right to work - concomitantly reconciling their roles as mother, wife and housewife -, black and poor women fight for survival and dignity. As result, the film analysis showed that women’s search for a different social position is related to an inherent cultural aspect. It is relevant to mention herein that this struggle remains up to the present; such struggle is characterized by the occultation of the social role played by women.
Research limitations/implications
As a limitation, there are few studies that address the theme of white and black women during the period reported in the series.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this article is the use of a filming product that portrays the 1950s, but bringing current discussions on the role of women in society, especially regarding the labor market, the patriarchal domination of men, prejudice, racial, and class discrimination.
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Lauren N. Irwin and Julie R. Posselt
Developing leaders for a diverse democracy is an increasingly important aim of higher education and social justice is ever more a goal of leadership education efforts…
Abstract
Developing leaders for a diverse democracy is an increasingly important aim of higher education and social justice is ever more a goal of leadership education efforts. Accordingly, it is important to explore how dominant leadership models, as blueprints for student leadership development, account for and may unwittingly reinforce systems of domination, like racism. This critical discourse analysis, rooted in racialization and color-evasiveness, examines three prominent college student leadership development models to examine how leaders and leadership are racialized. We find that all three leadership texts frame leaders and leadership in color-evasive ways. Specifically, the texts’ discourses reveal three mechanisms for evading race in leadership: focusing on individual identities, emphasizing universality, and centering collaboration. Implications for race in leadership development, the social construction of leadership more broadly, and future scholarship are discussed.
Anna Cronin de Chavez, Helen Louise Ball and Martin Ward-Platt
Overheating is considered a modifiable risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in infant thermal care beliefs…
Abstract
Purpose
Overheating is considered a modifiable risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in infant thermal care beliefs between mothers of South Asian and white British origin in Bradford, UK.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed face-to-face interviews with semi-structured and structured questions with 51 white British and 51 South-Asian mothers in the Bradford District, UK.
Findings
White British mothers were more concerned about overheating causing SIDS whereas South-Asian mothers were more concerned about cold causing respiratory infections. However concerns around hypothermia and chills causing colds were expressed in both groups. White British mothers were significantly more likely to be concerned about their infant getting too hot than too cold and South-Asian mothers about both heat and cold (p0.001), but white British mothers on lower incomes and with poorer education expressed concern about cold more so than their better off, better educated peers indicating a possible link to fuel poverty.
Research limitations/implications
It was not possible to observe actual night-time practices and that South Asian as a cultural category is limited because could be regarded as too broad.
Practical implications
Whilst there guidance available to prevent infants overheating to prevent SIDS there is little or none about infants getting cold and how temperature affects other conditions.
Social implications
Thermal care behaviours and beliefs differ between ethnic groups. SIDS and overheating is only one concern for mothers in providing thermal care for their infants. More policy and research is needed to explore the wider impact of thermal care on infant health and survival.
Originality/value
This topic is rarely addressed despite the wide ranging implications of heat and cold to infant well-being.
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Martin Karlsson, Fredrik Karlsson, Joachim Åström and Thomas Denk
This paper aims to investigate the connection between different perceived organizational cultures and information security policy compliance among white-collar workers.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the connection between different perceived organizational cultures and information security policy compliance among white-collar workers.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument was sent to white-collar workers in Sweden (n = 674), asking about compliance with information security policies. The survey instrument is an operationalization of the Competing Values Framework that distinguishes between four different types of organizational culture: clan, adhocracy, market and bureaucracy.
Findings
The results indicate that organizational cultures with an internal focus are positively related to employees’ information security policy compliance. Differences in organizational culture with regards to control and flexibility seem to have less effect. The analysis shows that a bureaucratic form of organizational culture is most fruitful for fostering employees’ information security policy compliance.
Research limitations/implications
The results suggest that differences in organizational culture are important for employees’ information security policy compliance. This justifies further investigating the mechanisms linking organizational culture to information security compliance.
Practical implications
Practitioners should be aware that the different organizational cultures do matter for employees’ information security compliance. In businesses and the public sector, the authors see a development toward customer orientation and marketization, i.e. the opposite an internal focus, that may have negative ramifications for the information security of organizations.
Originality/value
Few information security policy compliance studies exist on the consequences of different organizational/information cultures.
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Madeleine Novich and Alyssa Zduniak
Videos of police abuse are often spread through technology, raising questions around how perceptions of police are impacted by these images, especially for 18–24-year-olds who are…
Abstract
Videos of police abuse are often spread through technology, raising questions around how perceptions of police are impacted by these images, especially for 18–24-year-olds who are constantly “logged on.” Limited research investigates the impact of social media on attitudes toward police accounting for age and race. The present study utilizes 19 in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of urban college students who regularly use social media in order to understand how they have been impacted by this content. The findings suggest the necessity of using an intersectional framework to understand the impact of tech-witnessed violence. While no gender differences were uncovered, racial differences did surface. White participants described being minimally influenced by videos of police misconduct, rationalizing it as a “few bad apples.” In contrast, participants of color, except those with family members in law enforcement, described being negatively impacted. Viral content contributed to negative opinions of police, emotional distress, and fears of victimization. Ultimately, videos of police brutality do not impact young populations equally. Instead, they are comparatively more harmful to young people of color who spend more time on social media, can envision themselves as the victims, and experience feelings of fear, despair, and anger after watching these videos.
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Steven Davies, Gareth Reginald Terrence White, Anthony Samuel and Helen Martin
Covid-19 has caused many businesses to rethink their short- and potentially long-term workforce operations. The use of lateral flow serology can provide a clinically convenient…
Abstract
Purpose
Covid-19 has caused many businesses to rethink their short- and potentially long-term workforce operations. The use of lateral flow serology can provide a clinically convenient approach for the assessment of prior infection with Covid-19. However, its widespread adoption in organisations seeking to use it to test for workforce immunity is controversial and confusing. This paper aims to explore the paradoxical dilemmas and dialectics immunity workforce testing creates.
Design/methodology/approach
This study involved capturing the ethnographical participation of a chief executive officer (CEO) dealing with the experience of managing the outcomes of Covid-19 workforce immunity testing. The aim was to take a snapshot in time of the CEO's empirical world, capturing their lived experiences to explore how management actions resulting from Covid-19 immunity testing can played out.
Findings
Providing staff with immunity tests at first glance appears sensible, decent and a caring action to take. Nevertheless, once such knowledge is personalised by employees, they can, through dialectic dialogue, feel disadvantaged and harbour feelings of unfairness. Subsequently, this paper suggests that immunity testing may only serve to raise awareness and deepen the original management dilemma of whether testing is a worthwhile activity.
Originality/value
This paper aims to be amongst the first works to empirically explore the workforce management challenges that arise within small businesses within the service sector following the completion of Covid-19 immunity testing of their staff. It seeks to achieve this via utilising the robust theoretical framework of the paradox theory to examine Covid-19's impact upon small business workforce management thinking and practice.