Search results

The article discusses salient factors related to fostering effective and wholesome learning experiences. These factors, based on the reflective insights of the authors, are discussed with the intent of encouraging further discussion and exploration that may contribute to even more effective and more wholesome learning experiences. In addition, these insights are shared with the intent of assisting new or emerging educators/trainers in facilitating effective and wholesome learning experiences.

The tone of the article is reflective in nature, summarizing key insights of the authors gleaned from over 40 collective years in higher education, as well as two decades of work-related experience in the corporate world.

The insights and reflections during the later stage of the authors’ careers in higher education led to the identification of five major themes or factors related to facilitating effective and wholesome learning experiences. These include: 1. Relevant and Applicable; 2. Engagement, Interaction, and Critical Thinking; 3. Organization and Clarity; 4. Fostering Trust Through Communication, Responsiveness, and Feedback; 5. Flexibility and Augmentation

While many of the factors highlighted in the article align with related literature, the reflective insights of the authors contribute to a more nuanced discussion of several factors. The nuanced nature of the discussion is influenced by the collective experiences of the authors from over 40 years of collective experience in higher education, combined with 20 years of collective experience in the corporate world.

This study aims to understand the lasting relationship between luxury fashion and art. The purpose of the paper is to explore whether the application of art, the cooperation with artists, the implementation of experiential strategies focusing on retail spaces and shows embedded in the strategic concept of a luxury brand lead to a competitive advantage and to a sustained value creation for luxury brands.

Based on the literature, the strategic role of art and the importance of experiential marketing for the value creation of European luxury fashion brands was explored through empirical data collection, consisting of 26 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The gained data have been analysed through a thematic analysis approach and triangulated to avoid bias.

The exploratory study revealed that when art is applied as a strategic tool, it is of relevance to achieve an authentic fit to the brand. When integrating art consistently and authentically within the whole value chain system, it leads to a higher brand equity.

The paper provides a guide for both academics and marketers as theoretical frameworks are examined, analysed and future recommendations are given, which are suited to be applied within the brand management principles.

The outcome contributes to a wider delineation regarding the future of luxury brands. The study reveals novel viewpoints concerning the integration of arts in luxury brand marketing and adds to existing literature.

This paper aims to show the representation of entrepreneurship in movies (blockbusters) as a source of influence on popular representations.

The author uses semiotics to contrast dominant representations in popular movies about Chanel with the reality of her professional life as can be found in archives about the fashion world and couture workers.

The changes in the account of the entrepreneur's success may disregard important elements such as the importance of collective work and the role of social history on entrepreneurial ventures.

Is entrepreneurship really a source of information in the general representations of what it is to be an entrepreneur and what explains the success and failure of entrepreneurial venture when we observe that popular representations are so far away from what research can describe and interpret using primary data?

By displaying the discrepancy between entrepreneurship theory and popular representations, especially in the movies, one may be able to grasp some of the reasons why entrepreneurship needs more in-depth analysis of actors' representations in relation to the image of popular entrepreneurs in the public eye.

Shortly before the Second World War, a woman who had never accepted her orphan status, Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, nicknamed ‘Little Coco’ by her father and known as ‘Coco’ to her relatives, became the first women in history to build a world-class industrial empire. By 1935, Coco, a fashion designer and industry captain, was employing more than 4,000 workers and had sold more than 28,000 dresses, tailored jackets and women's suits. Born into a poor family and raised in an orphanage, she enjoyed an intense social life in Paris in the 1920s, rubbing shoulders with artists, creators and the rising stars of her time.

Thanks to her entrepreneurial skills, she was able to innovate in her methods and in her trendsetting approach to fashion design and promotion. Coco Chanel was committed and creative, had the soul of an entrepreneur and went on to become a world leader in a brand new sector combining fashion, accessories and perfumes that she would help shape. By the end of her life, she had redefined French elegance and revolutionized the way people dressed.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century Paris was the global capital of art and fashion. Today it remains a key hub in the global cultural economy. Male and female artists/designers develop new products and production techniques and marketing techniques are used to gain an international reputation. The top designers are embedded in a supportive milieu of cooperative competition, where ideas are exchanged and resources accessed. The purpose of this paper is to draw on archival documents to examine the privileged role cities have played as centres of cultural and economic activity, with specific reference to Paris and haute couture.

The paper employs a case study approach, accessing data from a number of sources including secondary sources and grey literature, the analysis of archival material, and in‐depth interviews with key stakeholders in examining the role of Parisian haute couture.

Parisian haute couture developed using the system pioneered in the nineteenth century by the Englishman Charles Worth. Their ideas inspired fashion trends globally, and this persisted for over a century. The salons tended to be owned at least partially by the artist/designer. The most successful designers based their reputations on a specific and well defined fashion innovation. A further strategy adopted by couturiers was the use of subsidiary lines of products to offset uncertainties in the market for fashionable clothing, the principal one being perfume.

The paper links the work of French and Anglo‐American writers on the cultural economy, and highlights, using case studies, the pivotal role Paris has played in shaping global fashion trends since the nineteenth century.

It must be evident to those who read the reports of the legal cases which are published month after month in this journal, that the administration of the laws relating to the sale of bad, adulterated, and impoverished food in this country is rapidly becoming chaotic. We labour under the radical defects in the Acts themselves, the negligence of many of the authorities whose duty it is to set the law in motion, the lassitude of Parliament, and the apparent impotence of Government Departments. Add to these the mournful incapacity so frequently exhibited by occupants of the magisterial or judicial bench, when called upon to adjudicate on matters involving scientific points—even when these are only decimal points—the quibbling of defending lawyers, and the remarkable allegations of certain types of reputed expert witnesses, and we have a picture which can only be considered as in the highest degree discreditable. We admit that the picture has its ludicrous aspect, but the issues involved are far too serious to justify laughter or negligence ad infinitum. The difficulties, due to the causes mentioned, which lie in the way of those who really desire to see the Acts effectively enforced, are daily becoming greater, and in the absence of early and drastic remedial measures, can only lead to chaos. We urge again, as we have repeatedly urged before, that immediate, vigorous, and comprehensive action should be taken by the Government Authorities concerned to give legal effect to the recommendations of their own Departmental Committees, and to meet the representations so frequently made by those who are called upon to set the law in motion. If the absence of effective, action is to be attributed to real and not merely to apparent impotence, the only method of securing ultimate reform is that education of public opinion which it is the main object of this journal to carry out. The people who, rightly enough, are disturbed about the physical deterioration of the nation, and who hope great things from yet another Departmental Committee's investigations and reports—probably, like others we could name, doomed to pigeon‐holes and sterility—have not yet appreciated that WATER AIR, and FOOD are the main determining factors in all questions of human deterioration. When the fact is grasped by a sufficient number of persons—possessing votes—it may be hoped that there will be an awakening, and that some legislator of Herculean power will arise to cleanse the Augean stable.

It is apparently becoming the fashion among certain types of self‐sufficient persons in this country to endeavour to bring discredit upon the scientific expert, and—whenever the practice can be indulged in with impunity—to snub and to insult him as far as possible. While this course of procedure is particularly to be observed when the expert is called upon to give evidence in a Court of Law, or to explain technical points before some highly inexpert body, it is not only in these circumstances that he is subjected to misrepresentation, discourtesy, and downright insult. Whenever a case occurs which appears to afford pabulum capable of being twisted into shape for the purpose, certain newspapers— generally, we are glad to say, of the lower class—are invariably ready to publish cheap sneers at science and scientific men, frequently accompanied by insulting suggestions. Other journals of a better class do not indulge in abuse and insulting suggestions, but confine themselves to lecturing the expert or experts with all that assurance which is characteristic of blatant ignorance. Accusations of incompetence and of culpable negligence are common in the gutter Press and in some so‐called Courts of Justice. Even suggestions of bad faith and of failure to honourably discharge duties undertaken are sometimes to be met with. It cannot be supposed that the reason for all this is to be found in the conduct of some very few persons who, in the eyes of all right‐thinking people, have brought discredit on themselves by appearing as “ advocate‐witnesses ” to defend the indefensible. At any rate, the conduct of such individuals affords no justification for tarring everybody with the same brush. The hostile, acidly‐cantankerous, and frequently grossly insolent attitude adopted by certain persons and in certain quarters towards those experts whose duties are of a public character and connected with legal or semi‐legal proceedings, is due to a reason which is not far to seek. It is due, in the first place, to the disgraceful ignorance in regard to scientific matters, even of the most elementary kind, which unhappily pervades all classes of the community;' and, secondly, to that form of jealousy peculiar to the small and mean mind which detests and kicks at anything and everything beyond its power of comprehension. When apparently contradictory evidence is given by scientific witnesses—appearing on opposite sides in a case—it is obviously far more easy and satisfactory to shriek about the “ differing of doctors ” than to admit that one's own miserable ignorance prevents one from seeing the points and from ascertaining whether there is any real contradiction or not. It is far more convenient to suggest that the public analyst, for instance, does not know what he is about, has made some absurd mistake, or has been guilty of scandalous negligence, than to admit that one does not understand his certificate owing to one's own defective education or inferior intellectual capacity.

In commenting upon a recent action brought by a Mr. Soper for a libel published upon him in a trade journal in regard to the sale of adulterated boots, the Daily Telegraph makes some excellent remarks, which ought to appeal strongly to all manufacturers, no matter what trade they are engaged in, who are really desirous of conducting their concerns upon honest and straightforward lines. The Daily Telegraph observes that reformers are rarely popular with their rivals, especially when they expose tricks in the trade, and advocate raising the standard of commercial honesty. Mr. Soper, the plaintiff in the case in question, was in that position. He had started a crusade against the practice of adulterating the soles of boots with paper fillings, and advocated a standard mark, in order to distinguish what is genuine from what is adulterated. This was resented by the threatened interests. Mr. Soper raised up enemies, and, in consequence, the article complained of was written, accusing him of “knowingly” selling adulterated boots at his shop while he thus publicly denounced them. The libel lay in the word “knowingly,” for it appeared that adulterated boots were actually sold at Mr. SoPer's establishment. But this was because he had failed to detect their presence; he had taken all the precautions which he could take, and he had cut open a number of pairs; he demanded guarantees from the manufacturers with whom he dealt; and, moreover, he was willing to take back any pair from any customer which were found to contain paper. The boot trade does not emerge with credit from this investigation. It was admitted that adulteration had been going on for the last ten years, and one manufacturer's traveller, when asked whether he was not surprised that paper should be found in the soles of boots costing seven or eight shillings, frankly replied, “Nothing surprises me in the boot trade.” The public will share his truly Horatian attitude of mind. Some such standard mark as that advocated by Mr. Soper seems to be the only method of protecting the public, if, indeed, the public desires to be protected, which seems doubtful. The ordinary customer is as helpless in a boot shop as in a curiosity shop. He must trust the word of the shopkeeper. And in turn the shopkeeper has to trust the manufacturers. The excuses of some of the latter, that the use of paper instead of leather did not mean any profit for them, or that the workmen could not be stopped from using cardboard fillings, will not do. There would be no adulteration if it were not profitable to adulterate. Adulteration seems to be rampant in most industries. One might even say that in some it is no longer the exception, but the rule. Wool, for example, has been treated just as scurvily as leather. Woollen no longer means woollen, but cotton with a pinch of wool. One has to ask for “guaranteed pure wool”— and pay accordingly—to feel any confidence that one is getting wool. So, too, with flannel and silk, and even cotton is adulterated with minerals to give it an essentially false weight. The ingredients from which “shoddy” is made would terrify the future wearer of it if he could see the “devil” at work, tearing up the noisome rags. Ignorance in this respect is becoming more blissful every year. Cheap sweets, cheap jams, cheap table delicacies, and all kinds of foods, all of which are warranted pure by the manufacturers, are, as a matter of fact, adulterated with impunity, and are all, in reality, “nasty” as well as “cheap.” The impotence of Government departments and of the Legislature in face of this condition of things has been demonstrated ad nauseam, and while such efforts as are made by local authorities to detect and suppress adulteration should receive all possible support and encouragement, it must be admitted that there is only one effective way of dealing with the evil—namely, the supply of guarantees of an independent and authoritative type to retail vendors and purchasers.

Using the backdrop of an (apparently) extended visit to the West Indies, analogies with key concerns of internal audit are drawn. An unusual and refreshing way of exploring the main themes ‐ a discussion between Bill and Jack on tour in the islands ‐ forms the debate. Explores the concepts of control, necessary procedures, fraud and corruption, supporting systems, creativity and chaos, and building a corporate control facility.