Fong‐Yuen Ding and Anthony Stoner
A third party logistics practice in using a materials service center to provide a manufacturer the component‐parts management function has become more widely accepted in industry…
Abstract
A third party logistics practice in using a materials service center to provide a manufacturer the component‐parts management function has become more widely accepted in industry. Due to the long‐term, high investment, and high part variety nature of a material service center operation, a sound evaluation procedure is needed for a potential user of this service to guide its decision making. An evaluation procedure is proposed here for materials service center decisions. The procedure includes five stages, which are to define the objectives, define the specification, identify the alternatives, evaluate the alternatives, and select an alternative. Specific considerations in these stages are discussed. A case study based on a materials service decision of a manufacturing firm is presented in the paper to demonstrate the use of the evaluation procedure.
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The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to, and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to nontheorists the…
Abstract
The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to, and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to nontheorists the unwelcome fact of heteronomy – that as actors, we are not as autonomous as we were told and prefer to assume – and to spell out what heteronomy in the form in which it has been shaping the developmental trajectory of modern societies means for professional theorists. I introduce the concept of “vitacide,” designed to capture that termination of life is a potential vanishing point of the heteronomous processes that have been shaping modern societies continuing to accelerate and intensify in ways that prefigure our future, but not on our human or social terms. Heteronomy pointing toward vitacide should compel us as social theorists to consider critically both the constructive and destructive trajectory that social change appears to have been following for more than two centuries, irrespective of whether the resulting prospect is to our liking or not. In this context, the classical critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School, especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, pursued what turned out to be an evolving interest in rackets, the authoritarian personality, and the administered society – concepts that served as foils for delineating the kind of theoretical stance that is becoming more and more important as we are moving into an increasingly uncertain future.
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The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader of some emerging trends in placemaking and digital destination management, while providing a conceptual background on shifts in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader of some emerging trends in placemaking and digital destination management, while providing a conceptual background on shifts in architectural design.
Design/methodology/approach
The trend paper is based on a fundamental bibliographic view on evolutions in placemaking, from architectural design to spatial agency, integrated by and contextualized in tourism trends, however possibly anecdotal.
Findings
The trend paper identifies a fundamental shift from architectural processes to spatial agency as organizing principle for placemaking, discussing how digital tourism trends are formed or forming change in this.
Originality/value
The trend paper newly relates otherwise distant and unrelated fields, namely architectural design theory and tourism trends, by connecting at the level of IoT and IT digital technologies, exploring the impact and the mutual role played by its two constituencies.
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This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework that can be used in studying the changing nature of management control in organizations. It is based on four components of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework that can be used in studying the changing nature of management control in organizations. It is based on four components of the management control system, namely: organizational structure and strategy; corporate culture; management information systems; and core control package.
Design/methodology/approach
A range of published works is reviewed to explore the nature of management control.
Findings
The conceptual framework developed in the paper can be used in studying the changing nature of management control in organizations.
Research limitations/implications
This is not an empirical investigation of management control.
Originality/value
The framework presented in this article is useful to both practitioners and researchers of management control.
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Wayne A. Hochwarter, Ilias Kapoutsis, Samantha L. Jordan, Abdul Karim Khan and Mayowa Babalola
Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers…
Abstract
Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers who capably steer organizations toward opportunities and away from threats. Accordingly, leadership development has never been more critical. In this chapter, the authors propose that leader development is an inherently dyadic process initiated to communicate formal and informal expectations. The authors focus on the informal component, in the form of organizational politics, as an element of leadership that is critical to employee and company success. The authors advocate that superiors represent the most salient information source for leader development, especially as it relates to political dynamics embedded in work systems. The authors discuss research associated with our conceptualization of dyadic political leader development (DPLD). Specifically, the authors develop DPLD by exploring its conceptual underpinnings as they relate to sensemaking, identity, and social learning theories. Once established, the authors provide a refined discussion of the construct, illustrating its scholarly mechanisms that better explain leader development processes and outcomes. The authors then expand research in the areas of political skill, political will, political knowledge, and political phronesis by embedding our conceptualization of DPLD into a political leadership model. The authors conclude by discussing methodological issues and avenues of future research stemming from the development of DPLD.
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Charles Thorpe and Brynna Jacobson
Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel's work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split…
Abstract
Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel's work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split between mind and nature and between subject/observer and observed object that characterizes scientific epistemology. Abstract mind reflects an abstracted objectified world of nature as a means to be exploited. Biological life is rendered as abstract life by capitalist exploitation and by the reification and technologization of organisms by contemporary technoscience. What Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” imposes market rationality onto nature and the living world, disrupting biotic communities and transforming organisms into what Finn Bowring calls “functional bio-machines.”
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There has been a grass roots movement among parents and educators requiring answers to precise questions about students’ academic learning behaviors in relation to actual…
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There has been a grass roots movement among parents and educators requiring answers to precise questions about students’ academic learning behaviors in relation to actual classroom instruction – a movement that is requiring the very character of educational assessment to assume a more direct role in determining the instructional needs of students. Both parents and teachers want their children to receive a good education and to be successful in school relative to their developmental skills. To achieve this, there is no better or more immediate way than through assessing how well children function in relation to the daily instruction they are receiving within their classroom assignments. Clearly, the curriculum establishes itself as the relevant medium for assessing both students’ needs and the directions to be taken by teachers in meeting those needs (McLaughlin & Lewis, 2001). Progress monitoring has of late been on the agenda of educational policy decision makers and administrators. With standard-based reform and school accountability at the forefront of educational policy (e.g., No Child Left Behind Act of 2001), it has become clear that if all students are to meet rigorous academic standards, assessment tools are needed to track student progress toward those standards and to quickly and accurately identify students at risk for failing to read them. Moreover, some have suggested the use of progress monitoring as part of a nondiscriminatory, response-to-intervention approach for special education referral and identification (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006; Speece, Case, & Molloy, 2003). For students receiving special education services, progress monitoring is viewed as a way to uphold major tenets of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA, 2004) by aligning goals and objectives on Individualized Education Programs with performance and progress in the general curriculum (Nolet & McLaughlin, 2000).
Bill Lee and Christopher Humphrey
The purpose of the paper is to outline the development of academic research in the discipline of accounting, paying particular attention to the important contribution made by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to outline the development of academic research in the discipline of accounting, paying particular attention to the important contribution made by qualitative research projects.
Design/methodology/approach
Provision of a historical trajectory based on a review of developments in academic journals, the size and breadth of the academic community and other dimensions of the academic discipline of accounting.
Findings
The review indicates that accounting has developed into a pluralist discipline in the UK. Qualitative research features in many sub‐disciplinary areas of accounting.
Practical implications
The paper identifies the sibling discipline of finance as an area where qualitative research has not developed fully. It makes some suggestions and provides some indicators of how qualitative research in the areas of accounting and finance may develop in the future.
Originality/value
The paper provides the only attempt to date to analyse and review developments of qualitative research in accounting.
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The Nature of Business Policy Business policy — or general management — is concerned with the following six major functions: