As a founder faculty member of The University of Sussex, Angus Ross reflects on the experience of being an insider in a new university.
The conflict of expectations which centres in the university has always existed. Abelard had his difficulties with the lay society in which he lived, and student riots against the…
Abstract
The conflict of expectations which centres in the university has always existed. Abelard had his difficulties with the lay society in which he lived, and student riots against the faculty were not unknown in the Italian universities of the middle ages, that time which is so often advanced as the hey‐day of the well‐organized academic life. It is obvious, however, that within the last few years in Britain, the conflict has become if not more severe, at least more overt. Also, as the universities in Britain inescapably become larger and physically more complex, the direct action produced by the conflict of immediate expectations has become more public. It may even, on occasion as at LSE, paralyse the day‐to‐day functioning of the institution as an administrative structure. Such physical paralysis in turn offends the expectations of those who believe that they are paying for a piece of machinery, which may be seen to be in order by the regular movement of its parts, and be heard to work by the reassuring repetition of familiar sounds. It is rather a dismal fact, that these complex physical structures, like some lumbering dinosaurs, seem at present grossly affected by apparently tiny hostile activities. All this is to view the present pressures inside these institutions wholly as the result of the personal will of different interest groups, and indeed this is a useful picture for many purposes, though it is not the only, nor even a completely satisfactory one. It is a useful way to see the forces acting on a university teacher in Britain now, by looking at one's own expectations and how one sets out to achieve them. This puts a personal view into perspective, stimulating some of that ‘disinterested criticism’ that is rightly thought to be part of the academic life. It is a distinctly uncomfortable kind of introspection.
When James Conant visited Australia in 1951 he unwittingly entered an existing, lengthy debate about the value of university‐based knowledge in Australia. The Second World War…
Abstract
When James Conant visited Australia in 1951 he unwittingly entered an existing, lengthy debate about the value of university‐based knowledge in Australia. The Second World War, with its significant reliance on academic expertise, had suggested that if knowledge could win wars, the labour of academic staff could be considered to normally have social and economic value to the nation. In 1951 Conant had no way of foreseeing that steps made, in this light, at Federal level during and after the war, would culminate in the 1957 Review of Universities in Australia, chaired by Sir Keith Murray, and the injection of a large amount of funding into the university system. Conant’s confidential report to the Carnegie Corporation does show that he saw the system in desperate need of funding, which wasa reality that everyone agreed upon.1 The long debate included options for university funding and the potential change to the character of universities if the community, rather than the cloister, was to determine the purpose and character of knowledge. Conant’s report reflects this debate, centring (as many other participants did as well) on the value universities would gain if they were more obviously useful and relevant to industry and if their reputation was less stained by elitism and arrogance. Conant could not gather sufficient data in his visit to identify the nuances of this long discussion nor could he see the depth and spread of its influence over the decade or so preceding his visit. As a result, his particular agenda seems to obscure the perception of the threat that change provoked to some of the traditional values associated with academic work. To consider the debate and the character of academic work in the university scene that Conant fleetingly visited, we need to look back just a few years to another, but very different, visitor to the Australian system.
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This paper aims to analyse the management of urban on street car parking as an example of the dilemmas of understanding and improving the performance of public management.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse the management of urban on street car parking as an example of the dilemmas of understanding and improving the performance of public management.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual paper that assesses empirical practice against different theoretical frameworks and suggests new management and policy directions.
Findings
The management of regulatory services such as urban on street car parking are little examined in the literature of public management, though the economic literature does review some aspects of parking behaviour. This paper analyses car parking as an exemplar site for empirical confirmation of the difficulties of reconciling multiple stakeholder interests when addressing a “wicked problem”. The paper further argues that public management theory can be developed from examination of such routine minutiae of day‐to‐day life.
Originality/value
The paper provides a fresh theoretical perspective on an every day social activity and suggests that such analysis can aid theory building for public management.
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Meikel Soliman and Silke Boenigk
Imbedded in the life course paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to investigate which individual life events impact blood donations and to study their underlying mechanisms.
Abstract
Purpose
Imbedded in the life course paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to investigate which individual life events impact blood donations and to study their underlying mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
By applying logistic regression, moderation and mediation analysis, this paper uses a large sample of N = 5,640 individuals.
Findings
Experiencing normative life events and stressful life events reduce the likelihood of donating blood, whereas human capital life events enhance the likelihood of donating blood. Specifically, having a child and death of a mother decrease and finishing education increases the probability of blood donations. Locus of control and satisfaction with income are significant underlying mechanisms.
Practical implications
Social marketing campaigns can use individual life events to focus on similarities between potential blood donors and individuals in need of blood. Blood centers can adopt their services to cater to the changing needs after experiencing individual life events by running mobile blood collecting drives and providing guidance.
Social implications
Blood centers take an important role in sustaining a healthy society. As the need for blood will increase in the future, a better understanding of blood donation behavior and social marketing contributes to increased donations.
Originality/value
While previous research looked at collective life events, there is a dearth in marketing and blood literature on the effects of individual life events.
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The situating of pimatisiwin as a framework for spatial justice and self-determination aids educators in strengthening their understandings of Indigenous knowledges to support an…
Abstract
The situating of pimatisiwin as a framework for spatial justice and self-determination aids educators in strengthening their understandings of Indigenous knowledges to support an authentic inclusion of Indigenous students with disabilities. Through the sharing of Canada’s colonial history, and by critically examining the principles of care within special education, the author exposes its relationship with ableism, normalcy, eugenics, and white privilege to show how Indigenous peoples continue to be marginalized in the twenty-first century. This justice work asks educators to shift their perspectives of inclusion and wellness through the insertion of an Indigenous lens, one to help them see and hear the faces and voices of disabled Aboriginal children and their kinships. The chapter discusses the social model of disability, the psychology of Gentle Teaching, Indigenous ethics, and principles of natural laws through the voices of Nehiyawak and other knowledge keepers, in order to suggest an agenda for educators to come to an understanding of an emancipatory and gentle education. Spatial justice and Indigenous epistemologies merge as synergistic, inclusive, and holistic entities, to support Aboriginal children and youth as both they and those who teach learn to celebrate disabled ontologies. The chapter concludes by presenting how Gentle Teaching and Indigenous ways of knowing should be honored in this quest of creating an equitable, caring, and inclusive society for all disabled Indigenous children and youth.
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Angus Corbett, Jo Travaglia and Jeffrey Braithwaite
This paper aims to be a theoretical examination of the role of individuals in sponsoring and facilitating effective, systemic change in organisations. Using reports of a number of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to be a theoretical examination of the role of individuals in sponsoring and facilitating effective, systemic change in organisations. Using reports of a number of high‐profile initiatives to improve patient safety, it seeks to analyse the role of individual health care professionals in developing and facilitating new systems of care that improve safety and quality.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses recent work in sociology that is concerned with the phenomenon of “sociological citizenship”. The authors test whether successful initiators of change in health care can be described as sociological citizens. This notion of sociological citizens is applied to a number of highly successful initiatives to improve safety and quality to extrapolate the factors associated with individual clinician leadership, which may have affected the success of such endeavours.
Findings
In each of the examples analysed the initiators of change can be characterised as sociological citizens. In reviewing the roles of these charismatic individuals it is evident that they see the relational interdependence between the individuals and organisations and that they use this information to achieve both professional and organisational objectives.
Research limitations/implications
The paper uses a case study method to investigate the usefulness of the role of sociological citizenship in interventions that aim to improve patient safety. The paper reviews the key concepts and uses of the concept of sociological citizenship to produce a framework against which the case studies were assessed.
Practical implications
The authors suggest that a goal of policy for improving patient safety should be directed to the problem of how hospitals and health care organisations can create the conditions for encouraging the individual diligence and care that is needed to support reliable, safe health care practices.
Social implications
Improving the safety and quality of health care is an important public health initiative. It has also proven to be difficult to achieve sustained reductions in the harm caused by the occurrence of adverse events in health care. The process of linking individual diligence with service outcomes may help to overcome one of the enduring struggles of health care systems around the world: the policy‐practice divide.
Originality/value
The paper directs attention towards the role of sociological citizenship in health care systems and organisations.
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Martine Stead, Ross Gordon, Kathryn Angus and Laura McDermott
The purpose of this paper is to review the effectiveness of social marketing interventions in influencing individual behaviour and bringing about environmental and policy‐level…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the effectiveness of social marketing interventions in influencing individual behaviour and bringing about environmental and policy‐level changes in relation to alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs and physical activity. Social marketing is the use of marketing concepts in programmes designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences in order to improve health and society.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a review of systematic reviews and primary studies using pre‐specified search and inclusion criteria. Social marketing interventions were defined as those which adopted specified social marketing principles in their development and implementation.
Findings
The paper finds that a total of 54 interventions met the inclusion criteria. There was evidence that interventions adopting social marketing principles could be effective across a range of behaviours, with a range of target groups, in different settings, and can influence policy and professional practice as well as individuals.
Research limitations/implications
As this was a systematic paper, the quality of included studies was reasonable and many were RCTs. However, many of the multi‐component studies reported overall results only and research designs did not allow for the efficacy of different components to be compared. When reviewing social marketing effectiveness it is important not to rely solely on the “label” as social marketing is often misrepresented; there is a need for social marketers to clearly define their approach.
Practical implications
The paper shows that social marketing can form an effective framework for behaviour change interventions and can provide a useful “toolkit” for organisations that are trying to change health behaviours.
Originality/value
The research described in this paper represents one of the few systematic examinations of social marketing effectiveness and is based on a clear definition of “social marketing”. It highlights both social marketing's potential to achieve change in different behavioural contexts and its ability to work at individual, environmental and wider policy levels.
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THIS month usually sees the estimates adopted that must govern public library spending for the year to come. It is likely to be a testing time for many librarians and we look…
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THIS month usually sees the estimates adopted that must govern public library spending for the year to come. It is likely to be a testing time for many librarians and we look forward with much interest to their experiences this year. The international rearmament programme, which authority has told us will not radically change our economic position, must have its repercussions on all municipal activities; expansion, so badly needed and so often deferred, is not likely to come immediately. However, as we remarked last month, dismal prophecies have so often been confounded by the subsequent facts that we hope 1951 will not be an exception. The defence programme may have some Staff effects, especially if the Z reserves are called again to the Colours. There is much that we may hope and much we should plan for in the months immediately ahead.
Karyl Leggio and Marilyn Taylor
Roseda is a family-operated business that had its beginnings in a farm that Ed and his wife purchased before his retirement in 1994. The company’s current business strategy…
Abstract
Synopsis
Roseda is a family-operated business that had its beginnings in a farm that Ed and his wife purchased before his retirement in 1994. The company’s current business strategy emphasizes producing high-quality natural Black Angus beef without using hormones, chemical additives or antibiotics in cattle feeding and by dry aging the carcasses for enhanced flavor. This case focuses on the alternative growth strategies that Ed Burchell confronts for Roseda in early 2015.
Research methodology
The founder of Roseda Beef and the lead author became acquainted many years ago. In 2014, the two owners of Roseda agreed to have a case written about the firm. The case is based on formal interviews, on site observations at Roseda Farms, and an extensive review of the documentation that exists on this privately held company. In addition, the company made some internal documents available including the income statements and balance sheets for this private company.
Relevant courses and levels
This course has been taught four times at the MBA level so far: twice in a strategic management course, and twice in a financial strategy course.
Theoretical bases
Roseda Beef was developed to provide students in a capstone strategy or finance course the opportunity to undertake a situational analysis including the firm’s summary financials and the rudimentary financial analysis of the expansion opportunities that are included in the case. The case is based on capital budgeting principles in finance and fundamentals of strategy development.