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The US aerospace industry is currently being challenged by both strong international competittion in the commerical sector and the effects of declining defence budgets on government contracts. In an effort to meet these challenges, the industry is experimenting with new ways of organizing. One of the most effective new organizational structures is the product development team (PDT). Briefly examines what a PDT is and the advantages this type of organization has over the conventional functional type of structure. Because when to use PDTs and when not to is of critical importance, and includes guidelines to aid in the decision‐making process. Since implementing PDTs involves a major corporate culture change, problems will occur. Both potential problems and suggested strategies for resolution are included to provide some solace for the frustrated. The bottom line on PDTs is that they can greatly improve product quality while reducing costs and time to market. The effort of implementation is great, but so are the potential rewards.

This chapter provides an analysis of images produced and employed in protests against surveillance in Germany in 2008 and 2009. For this purpose, a method of visual analysis is developed that draws mainly on semiotics and art history. Following this method, the contribution examines a selection of images (pictures and graphic design) from the anti-surveillance protests in three steps: description of components, detection of conventional signs, and contextual analysis. Furthermore, the analysis compares the images of the two major currents of the protest (liberal and radical left) in order to elucidate the context in which images are created and used. The analysis shows that images do not merely illustrate existing political messages but contribute to movements’ systems of meaning creation and transportation. The two currents in the protests communicate their point of view through the images both strategically and expressively. The images play a crucial role in formulating groups’ different strategies as well as worldviews and identities. In addition, the analysis shows that the meaning of images is contested and contextual. Images are produced and received in specific national as well as issue contexts. Future research should address the issue of context and reception in greater depth in order to further explore the effects of visual language on mobilization. Overall, the contribution demonstrates that systematic visual analysis allows our understanding of social movements’ aims, strategy, and collective identity to be deepened. In addition, visual analysis may provide activists with a tool to critically assess their visual communication.

Although there are a number of hybrid tropes and cross-over conventions that relate to contemporary action cinema, broken down to its most rudimentary components, the genre places its cinematic hero in scenes of ritualised violence or conflict, with the intent of showcasing both athletic mastery and aesthetically pleasing physiques for interested and invested audiences. In as much as it is difficult to define the contemporary genre, the role of the action hero is clear in all permutations. Indeed, there is little question or query about who or what makes for a popular and long-standing action star. After all, names such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Statham have become inextricably linked to the genre in question. While there is much to consider here in relation to the muscles and power of these hard-bodied heroes in sweaty vests or form fitting t-shirts, there is another iteration of masculinity, a different and more agile physique, a more refined sartorial code, that has quietly overtaken these macho figures as the site of contemporary action, and that figure is Keanu Reeves. With this in mind, this chapter will examine the ways in which popular media reviewers foreground star image, acting, movement, the body and performance in order to position Reeves as an action star removed from the physical excesses of bulkier, slower and less agile men who continue to perform in the genre around him.

This chapter examines relationships between gender equity and environmental concerns as expressed through two different views of ecofeminism, those of a natural scientist and a social scientist. Personal experiences are recorded and analyzed to show similarities and differences in life and career trajectories, in part influenced by ecofeminist thought. In tracing this impact, we observed that much of the current philosophical and social science framework is less applicable to a natural science perspective. Natural systems repeat and nest at varieties of scales; thus the connectivity within any system parallels, reflects, mirrors the connectivity of other systems. These parallel systems can be nested in fractal-like natural worlds, where connections within are reflected between, and the patterns of the system are replicated in each. Thus, when we look across the range of interconnected systems, the axes are not intersecting at all, but simply reflective parallels. Such may be the case with the axes of oppression emphasized by many ecofeminists. We thus propose an extension to ecofeminist thinking – the notion of system reflectivity that encompasses, but is broader than, the idea of simultaneously operating axes of oppression.

Discusses the acquisition team formation, the interdisciplinary nature of the teams and the roles of the steering committee, MIS, purchasing and users for an ERP solution. The goal of the paper in presenting these is to make you aware that the composition of the acquisition teams is a critical factor that affects the acquisition process.

With increasing globalization and mass migration, nations around the world are facing new levels and new types of diversity. On one hand, increased diversity has prompted global attention to issues of human rights and related discourses of cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and cross-cultural tolerance. On the other hand, flows of diversity are sometimes linked to renewed nationalisms and xenophobia, and educational actors engage in new “bordering and ordering” processes (Robertson, 2011). Amidst these shifts, schools continue to be sites where complex global debates about diversity and national belonging play out in localized, “everyday” ways. In the quotidian activities of classrooms around the world, educators are expected to promote equality, build national unity, increase intergroup tolerance, and foster peace. Yet schools are inextricably linked to their sociopolitical contexts, and often reflect the exclusion, inequality, stratification, and xenophobia that exist outside of school walls. Scholars of Comparative and International Education (CIE) are uniquely positioned to examine how these complex dynamics of nation building and intergroup relations are negotiated in local-level curriculum, language practices, and pedagogical approaches. By comparing such dynamics on local, national, and global levels, scholars can interrogate how global discourses of human rights, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism play out in different contexts – and how such discourses are circulated, adapted, resisted, and appropriated by global and local actors.

Early years policy and services have been subjected to substantial and rapid reform over the past 20 years. This article provides a brief overview of legislative and policy changes over this period, with a particular focus on regulation and workforce issues, and traces the enduring influence of the Children Act 1989 to the present. It identifies a paradigm shift in early years services from a world view based on public health and care and on devolution of responsibility, to one in which promoting children's learning and development is core and centralised regulation and national standards are seen as essential. This is reflected in changed responsibilities at government department and regulatory body level. Despite these major changes, the article concludes that the key principles of the Act ‐ in terms of children's rights, parents' responsibilities, listening to children and inter‐agency co‐operation ‐ are still apparent.

Research indicates the challenges indeterminate sentenced prisoners (ISPs) face within open prison may have a potentially devastating impact on rehabilitation and prison sentence progression. The authors conducted a study in an English open prison to explore whether the closed prison environment within England and Wales is sufficiently preparing ISPs for the transition to open conditions. There is currently a gap in existing research concerning this issue, which this paper aims to narrow for the purpose of informing good practice and improving sentence progression and rehabilitation outcomes within His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

Qualitative and exploratory. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted to identify themes (Braun and Clarke, 2019).

Findings indicated the need for policy in closed prisons to better prepare ISPs for open prison and the need for policy in open prisons to better support ISPs during the liminal phase.

Findings aimed to inform consideration for improvements to enhance preparation for, and transition to, open conditions. A 17-month follow-up after dissemination of the research found evidence for the practical application of the findings at a local level within HMPPS and potential for wider applications linking to strategy and ISP initiatives.

If applied more widely across HMPPS in both closed and open prisons, the research findings have the potential to improve sentence progression and rehabilitation outcomes for ISPs.

Although a large contingency of theory and research has been conducted in the area of individual and interpersonal communication, relatively few theoreticians have focused on the broader character of communication at the organizational level of analysis. With the increasing emphases on total quality, leadership, adaptive cultures, process reengineering, and other organizational change and development efforts, however, the need to understand the process and function of organizational communication at a broader, more systemic level is paramount. The following paper attempts to address this issue by providing: (1) a comparative review and critique of three “classic” theoretical approaches to describing the importance of communication in organizations and the relationship between communication and organizational functioning (open systems theory, the information‐processing perspective, and the communication as culture framework); and (2) a new integrative framework—the CPR model of organizational communication—for conceptualizing and understanding the nature of communication in organizations based on constructs adapted from these three perspectives. The model is then used both in an applied example to help diagnose an organizational system and to stimulate suggestions for future research.