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The purpose of this paper is to understand citizens' perceptions of smartphone-based city management apps and to identify facilitators and barriers that influence app adoption and use. An aim is to identify how current technology adoption theories might be expanded and enriched for studying citizen adoption of city apps in the US.

This paper presents a qualitative exploratory case study of citizen perceptions of city management apps in Tallahassee, a top-ranked digital city in the southeastern United States. The authors derive empirical data from focus group discussions with citizens using thematic analysis.

Overall, the findings suggest that city management apps are primarily perceived and used by citizens as handy and efficient tools for the provision of information and public services. The findings suggest that current technology adoption and use models applied to citizen adoption of m-government may benefit by being expanded for the US context.

This paper highlights what factors of m-government technology are effective, useful or inhibiting in citizens' lives from the perspective of a group of citizens in the southeastern US. Implications that might be learned for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

This study aims to test how senior leaders recognize and reward the same leadership behavior in male and female managers.

A total of 120 senior government leaders evaluated simulated performance reviews wherein only manager ' s sex and engagement in individually considerate transformational leadership behavior varied.

Senior leaders (of both sexes) penalized male and female managers for failing to engage in individually considerate transformational leadership behavior (i.e. rating them as significantly less competent and civil, and recommending them for significantly fewer rewards such as salary and promotion) compared to control groups. However, only male managers benefited (in terms of competence ratings, recognition and reward) from being rated high on this behavior.

Findings support arguments in the literature for a “feminization” of leadership, whereby both male and female managers are now penalized for not engaging in individually considerate leadership behavior. However, they also question the extent to which women will get credit for engaging in some of the same transformational leadership behaviors as men.

Researchers and practitioners often collapse across components of the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) in measuring transformational leadership behavior. This may obfuscate some of the components being aligned with sex role stereotypes, and therefore unlikely to be rewarded in certain candidates. If the present findings are confirmed by future research, there may be reason to question how the MLQ is being used in research and practice on transformational leadership behavior.

This monograph contains abstracts from the 2005 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, 6‐7th September 2005

28 August this year is the 20th anniversary (I think!) of the date on which I published the first titles under my newly‐created librarianship imprint of Clive Bingley Ltd. I say ‘I think’ because, although I have a nostalgic taste for anniversaries — they are so happily meaningless in themselves — I recently discovered quite by chance that the date in January on which for many years my wife and I have celebrated with good wine the anniversary of the evening on which we first went out together is wrong by a fortnight! But I am pretty sure my first independent publishing date was at the end of August 1965.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which foreign live-in carers are able to construct agentive identities which counteract negative discourses regarding care work, sex and nationality.

Interviews with women working as carers in Bologna form the basis of this research which focuses on “small stories”. Using positioning analysis, both the immediate context where the narrative takes place and the wider societal discourses being referenced are examined. Subsequently, common recurrent discourses related to being a foreign carer in Italy are identified.

The interviewees make strategic use of prevailing negative discourses to construct counter narratives to avoid being positioned as low-skilled workers and to permit them to reject negative stereotypes of what it means to be a carer. In addition, more positive identities are constructed.

These findings suggest that a sociolinguistic approach can help towards a better understanding of the lived-experiences of foreign care workers, as it can reveal aspects of carers’ lives which do not easily fit into the categories which are often the focus of larger-scale, thematic studies.

This paper combines an analysis of content together with an analysis of the construction of narrative to present a more complete picture of the reality of working as a carer today.

Tashkent State Public Library of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. Founded in 1870, it is now an important centre of culture and science in the Soviet East. The years of the library's existence may be divided into two periods, each differing widely from the other. Until the revolution, the library was hardly ever used by the local population, but by officials of the Tsarist administration, and Russian officers.

UP to the present the knowledge of these archives is most unsatisfactory. There is only one complete catalogue, which apparently was begun by Dr. L. Vella during the first half of the nineteenth century, and completed in 1890 by Doctors Camilleri and Briffa. This catalogue is a manuscript volume written in the Italian language, and has never been published in its entirety. A copy exists, however, also in manuscript, at the headquarters of the Sovereign Military Order of St. John in Rome.

Competitiveness is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the 1990s. It has drawn substantial attention from the government and business communities during the last 25 years. Morrisson et al. (1988) noted that between 1983 and 1987, the term competitiveness appeared more than 5700 times in the titles of newspapers and magazine articles. The growth of importance and interest can also be observed from the increase in the bibliographical entries in ABI/Inform database. From 1981 to 1986, the topic “international competitiveness” increased by about 26 listings per year (a total of 159 in 6 years) and the rate increased to 45 listings per year from 1987 to 1993. Academic interest in the area has also increased and as a result, new developments contemplating conceptualization and understanding of competitiveness are taking place. However, to no one's surprise, writers from different disciplines offer a variation in perspective when describing the concept, understanding, and postulation of competitiveness.

The chapter aims to examine the number, type, and international presence of European companies (Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Rumanian, Bulgarian, and English) operating in the renewable energy industries, as well as Chinese companies. Through the analysis of two businesses that have established partnerships and a wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE) in China, the chapter identifies the main elements of their management strategies that led to successful operation in China.

To analyze the main characteristics and the internationalization of the European firms operating in the renewable energy industry, we collected information from secondary data. To identify the successful business models to operate successfully in China, we adopted a qualitative case study approach, based on direct interviews and information published on the company websites and articles found on the web.

European enterprises encounter difficulties in approaching the Chinese market, which is rapidly developing as a result of the latest five-year plan setting energy and climate change targets and policies. Indeed, the number of European firms investing in China is low. Through the analysis of two business cases (Asja and Caleffi) that have established partnerships and a WFOE in China, the chapter identifies the main elements of their management strategies that led to successful operation in China.

The relatively small number of cases (two) limits the generalizability of our findings. However, we are convinced that the size of our case companies and their experience in China mean our results are well grounded, although more research is needed.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that has explored the business models adopted by European firms operating in the renewable energy industry in China.