Tony Williams, Brian Birchall and Julian Rishton
Composite design software is helping engineers from British Aerospace to reduce significantly engineering time on composite parts for the Eurofighter 2000 aircraft. FiberSIM’…
Abstract
Composite design software is helping engineers from British Aerospace to reduce significantly engineering time on composite parts for the Eurofighter 2000 aircraft. FiberSIM’ simulation software from Composite Design Technologies (CDT), Waltham, Massachusetts, allows manufacturing engineers to define the composite lay‐up on a computer, eliminating the old, industry‐wide trial and error process that was used to lay composite plies onto a complex surface. The new technology ensures that manufacturing reflects the design intent and reduces weight by avoiding unnecessary patches. British Aerospace also expects additional production time savings by using the software to program laser projection equipment.
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Better Health, Better Care Action Plan (Scottish Government, 2007) sets out how the Scottish Government intends to strengthen public ownership of the National Health Service in…
Abstract
Purpose
Better Health, Better Care Action Plan (Scottish Government, 2007) sets out how the Scottish Government intends to strengthen public ownership of the National Health Service in Scotland. The purpose of this paper is to advance extant knowledge by understanding how a state-led mutual health policy may be interpreted, and importantly, communicated.
Design/methodology/approach
The definitional problem of mutuality will be discussed and analysed in terms of how it is (or perhaps should be) communicated? will be offered.
Findings
It actually may be more instructive to think of, and communicate, mutuality as a metaphor to aid understanding of the openness and fluidity found in NHS Scotland.
Research limitations/implications
The existence of paradox and ambiguity does not, however, negate the usefulness of the term “mutuality”. Quite the opposite in fact: it is precisely by examining healthcare and its delivery through the lens of mutuality (rather than rejecting its complexity as a failure) that this amorphousness can be better appreciated.
Practical implications
There is a need for more public, professional, and academic debate to explore and clarify its implementation, and how it is to be led. This must be provided whilst recognising the daily imperatives that NHS leaders must face. This would suggest, therefore, that a dual development path may help.
Originality/value
Although Better Health, Better Care Action Plan was published in 2007, some eight years on there is still confusion and misunderstanding as to what mutuality in healthcare is, not only in policy and theory, but also in practice. It is hoped that this analysis will help address, in part, some of this confusion and misunderstanding.
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This paper aims to analyse the character and strength of the claims made in an emerging literature offering a sociology of financial reporting principles.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse the character and strength of the claims made in an emerging literature offering a sociology of financial reporting principles.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis evaluates exemplary works in the literature against the characteristics of the paranoid style first identified by Richard Hofstadter: overheated claims of a far-reaching, malign and collusive machinery of influence; a reductive, rationalistic and dualistic reading of events; weak empirics; and weak theorisation.
Findings
A significant stream within the literature is coming to be constructed in the paranoid style. Paranoid stylistics, used as a diagnostic tool, alerts us here to distorted judgement.
Research limitations/implications
Alternative ways of avoiding the dangers of paranoid-style readings are suggested, ranging from resisting the temptations towards such readings to a radical re-working of the epistemics of “socio-accounting”.
Practical implications
The danger of allowing the conclusions advanced in the literature to go unchallenged is that they may influence society’s attitude to accounting, public policy-making and scholars’ willingness to contribute to the crafting of reporting principles and standards.
Originality/value
Although paranoid style analysis has been widely used to examine narratives in other academic fields, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to apply it to scholarly accounting.
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This paper is concerned with job re‐design in operating systems: the types of change encountered; who advocates change and why; the implications of job changes for the job holders…
Abstract
This paper is concerned with job re‐design in operating systems: the types of change encountered; who advocates change and why; the implications of job changes for the job holders and their supervisors (and ultimately operations managers); and steps which can be taken to overcome or avoid supervisory management alienation. Also, the types of outcome typically emerging after implementation of job revisions.
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Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover…
Abstract
Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.
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Janos Salamon, Brian D. Blume, Gábor Orosz and Tamás Nagy
The impact of the number of coworkers participating in training on transfer outcomes has largely been overlooked. This paper aims to examine whether the number of coworkers…
Abstract
Purpose
The impact of the number of coworkers participating in training on transfer outcomes has largely been overlooked. This paper aims to examine whether the number of coworkers participating in training interacts with peer support (PS) to influence training motivation and transfer.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey from a sample of 688 employees working in 14 midsize and large companies. All participants were recent trainees in various open skill (e.g. leadership) training programs. Moderated mediation was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Motivation to transfer (MTT) mediated the relationship between PS and perceived training transfer. When more coworkers participated in the training, PS had a stronger influence on trainee MTT.
Practical implications
Organizations should consider training coworker cohorts at the same time to influence MTT and training transfer. Generally, whole-team training programs could be used to boost training transfer outcomes, although it could potentially have a negative impact on transfer if PS is low.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first study to demonstrate that the number of coworkers participating in training can moderate the effect of PS on MTT and training transfer.
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AT the present time leisure is a subject which does not attract much serious attention. Sporadic discussions break out now and again among small groups; or it provides a topic for…
Abstract
AT the present time leisure is a subject which does not attract much serious attention. Sporadic discussions break out now and again among small groups; or it provides a topic for the popular press during the ‘silly season’. There is, however, a distinct possibility that in the measurable future an Institute of Leisure Study will be needed.
MOST days, newspapers and TV tell us how yet more plants are closing down with a stated loss of jobs. There is another side to the picture that unfortunately is often lost in…
Abstract
MOST days, newspapers and TV tell us how yet more plants are closing down with a stated loss of jobs. There is another side to the picture that unfortunately is often lost in small paragraphs tucked away in a corner or to be found only in the columns of trade journals. They are the stories of the new factories opening, of new opportunities for those who are ready to seize them.
THE Report of the Committee on Libraries, which was issued by the University Grants Committee in the summer of 1967, had for long been called the Parry Report after its Chairman…
Abstract
THE Report of the Committee on Libraries, which was issued by the University Grants Committee in the summer of 1967, had for long been called the Parry Report after its Chairman, Dr. Thomas Parry, formerly Librarian of the National Library of Wales and at the time the Principal of University College of Wales in Aberystwyth. When it was first set up in June 1963 the terms of reference were as follows:
This paper aims to examine the role that the co‐operative sector can play in responding to the needs and aspirations of older people. In addition, through recounting the Change…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role that the co‐operative sector can play in responding to the needs and aspirations of older people. In addition, through recounting the Change AGEnts co‐operative journey, it seeks to demonstrate that co‐operative principles have the potential to reconfigure services and change the existing negative narrative on which much public sector commissioning and provision is based.
Design/methodology/approach
Change AGEnts is the legacy organisation that came out of the Better Government for Older People's Programme (BGOP), 1998‐2009. The journey from a government sponsored initiative (Cabinet Office) to an independent co‐operative illustrates the opportunities and challenges inherent in taking forward the coalition's present policy intentions of promoting co‐ownership of services, localism and building co‐operative communities.
Findings
Co‐operative approaches empower both professional and older people, through common ownership and mutuality. The experience of forming a co‐operative and becoming part of the co‐operative movement, has the potential to completely change the relationship between older people and the state.
Originality/value
The paper illustrates that deliberation and dialogue has a powerful part to play within the co‐operative movement, through increasing the control of older people in policy and practice outcomes.