Glen Alexandrin and Charles E. Zech
This study compares traditional, neoclassical economics with two religiously‐based economic paradigms. The first relies on an application of the teachings of Buddhism. The second…
Abstract
This study compares traditional, neoclassical economics with two religiously‐based economic paradigms. The first relies on an application of the teachings of Buddhism. The second, of more recent vintage, is based on Christian principles, and is grounded in the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church of the past 100 years. The exercise of comparing neoclassical economics with these two religiously‐based paradigms is not meant to replace the former with one of the latter, but to provide a pair of prisms through which neoclassical economics can be viewed and fine tuned.
Pope John Paul II has been a prolific writer on social economic issues. In particular, three encyclicals, Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis and Centesimus Annus directly…
Abstract
Pope John Paul II has been a prolific writer on social economic issues. In particular, three encyclicals, Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis and Centesimus Annus directly address that topic. While John Paul, as leader of a global church, tends to address these issues from a global perspective, much of what he writes can be applied to the local, urban level of analysis. This essay applies many of John Paul’s premises to the urban poverty problem, including: the preferential option for the poor; the principle of the common use of goods; solidarity; and subsidiarity. It concludes that all of these principles can be used to analyze the problem of urban poverty, especially its spatial elements, and their application suggests a major re‐thinking of the relationship between suburbs and inner cities.
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Ludek Broz and Tereza Stöckelová
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge on how research evaluation in different national and organisational contexts affects, often in unintended ways…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge on how research evaluation in different national and organisational contexts affects, often in unintended ways, research and publication practices. In particular, it looks at the development of book publication in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the Czech Republic since 2004, when a performance-based system of evaluation was introduced, up to the present.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper builds upon ethnographic research complemented by the analysis of Czech science policy documents, data available in the governmental database “Information Register of R&D results” and formal and informal interviews with expert evaluators and other stakeholders in the research system. It further draws on the authors’ own experience as scholars, who have also over the years participated in a number of evaluation procedures as peers and experts.
Findings
The number of books published by researchers in SSH based at Czech institutions has risen considerably in reaction to the pressure for productivity that is inscribed into the evaluation methodology and has resulted in the rise of in-house publishing by researchers’ own research institution, “fake internationalisation” using foreign low-quality presses as the publication venue, and the development of a culture of orphaned books that have no readers.
Practical implications
In the Czech Republic robust and internationally harmonised bibliometric data regarding books would definitely help to create a form of research evaluation that would stimulate meaningful scholarly book production. At the same time, better-resourced and better-designed peer review evaluation is needed.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt to analyse in detail the conditions and consequences the Czech performance-based research evaluation system has for SSH book publication. The paper demonstrates that often discussed harming of SSH and book-writing in particular by performance-based IF-centred research evaluation does not necessarily manifest in declining numbers of publications. On the contrary, the number of books published may increase at the cost of producing more texts of questionable scholarly quality.
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Douglas Alleman and Eul-Bum Lee
The publication presents an analysis of the cost and schedule performance of incentive/disincentive projects and case studies toward developing a systematic disincentive valuation…
Abstract
Purpose
The publication presents an analysis of the cost and schedule performance of incentive/disincentive projects and case studies toward developing a systematic disincentive valuation process, with Construction Analysis for Pavement Rehabilitation Strategies (CA4PRS) software integration that aids agencies in minimizing the likelihood of court challenges of disincentives.
Design/methodology/approach
From a California transportation database, the authors performed cost and schedule analyses of 43 incentive/disincentive (I/D) projects and case studies on four of those I/D projects. Interviewees included subject matter experts from transportation organizations to ensure applicability and maximum value-adding, and the process was implemented on ten California transportation projects and monitored for performance.
Findings
The presented process mitigates the contractor's ability to claim disincentives as penalties in a court of law through the following: (1) all calculations are performed using project-specific bases, backed by estimations of actual incurred costs; (2) the CA4PRS software allows for estimation transparency and (3) the clarity of cost inclusions reduces any chances of “double-dipping” between disincentives and liquidated damages.
Practical implications
Transportation agencies have historically faced legal challenges to their enforcements of disincentives. As agencies continue to apply disincentives on more megaprojects, contractors will likely attempt to pursue legal challenges more frequently. The presented process mitigates the likelihood of these challenges going to court and increases the accuracy and efficiency of disincentives.
Originality/value
While there have been publications that discuss the legal challenges of imposing disincentives, they mainly provide guidelines and lack applicable processes. Existing literature that does present incentive/disincentive valuation process focuses on incentive valuations and neglects the disincentives' legal challenges. The following publication fills this gap by presenting an applicable disincentive valuation process for transportation projects which incorporates the guidelines for legal mitigation.
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Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American…
Abstract
Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.
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Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American…
Abstract
Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.
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Sonja E. Pippin, Mehmet S. Tosun, Charles A. Carslaw and Richard M. Mason
Despite its popularity as a research topic in the United States, property taxation in other countries has not received as much attention. International comparisons of property tax…
Abstract
Despite its popularity as a research topic in the United States, property taxation in other countries has not received as much attention. International comparisons of property tax systems are particularly rare in the academic literature. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the chapter summarizes the main differences and similarities of the property tax systems in 24 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries between 1970 and 2005. We show that these countries’ property tax systems vary with regard to three different property tax characteristics: reliance, mix, and decentralization. Second, we show that a significant amount of the cross-country variations of property tax and real estate tax reliance can be explained by institutional culture, specifically the difference between Anglo and non-Anglo countries, as well as demographic and economic environmental factors such as the elderly population, income, and unemployment.
Katja Brundiers, Arnim Wiek and Charles L. Redman
Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem‐solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and…
Abstract
Purpose
Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem‐solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders. These key competencies may be most fully developed in new teaching and learning situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the kind of, and extent to which, these key competencies can be acquired in real‐world learning opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper summarizes key competencies in sustainability, identifies criteria for real‐world learning opportunities in sustainability programs, and draws on dominant real‐world learning models including project‐ and problem‐based learning, service learning, and internships in communities, businesses, and governments. These components are integrated into a framework to design real‐world learning opportunities.
Findings
A “functional and progressive” model of real‐world learning opportunities seems most conducive to introduce students (as well as faculty and community partners) to collaborative research between academic researchers and practitioners. The stepwise process combined with additional principles allows building competencies such as problem solving, linking knowledge to action, and collaborative work, while applying concepts and methods from the field of sustainability.
Practical implications
The paper offers examples of real‐world learning opportunities at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, discusses general challenges of implementation and organizational learning, and draws attention to critical success factors such as collaborative design, coordination, and integration in general introductory courses for undergraduate students.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to sustainability education by clarifying how real‐world learning opportunities contribute to the acquisition of key competencies in sustainability. It proposes a functional and progressive model to be integrated into the (undergraduate) curriculum and suggests strategies for its implementation.
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Katherine Whitehouse, Ella Lambe, Sofia Rodriguez, Umberto Pellecchia, Aurelie Ponthieu, Rafael Van den Bergh and Djoen Besselink
Prolonged exposure to daily stressors can have long-term detrimental implications for overall mental health. For asylum seekers in European Union transit or destination countries…
Abstract
Purpose
Prolonged exposure to daily stressors can have long-term detrimental implications for overall mental health. For asylum seekers in European Union transit or destination countries, navigating life in reception centres can represent a significant burden. The purpose of this study was to explore post-migration stressors during residency in reception centres, and to formulate recommendations for adequate service provision in Belgium.
Design/methodology/approach
Research was conducted in two reception centres in Belgium. A total of 41 in-depth interviews were carried out with asylum seeker residents (n = 29) and staff (n = 12). Purposive recruitment was used for asylum seekers (for variation in length of centre residency and family status) and staff (variation in job profiles). Interviews were conducted in English, French or with a translator in Arabic or Dari. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and manually coded using thematic analysis.
Findings
Asylum seekers face significant constraints with regard to their living conditions, including total absence of privacy, overcrowding and unhygienic conditions. These act as continuous and prolonged exposure to daily stressors. Several barriers to accessing activities or integration opportunities prevent meaningful occupation, contribute towards eroded autonomy and isolation of asylum seeker residents. Inadequate capacity and resources for the provision of psychosocial support in reception centres leads to a sense of abandonment and worthlessness.
Originality/value
Analysis indicates that structural and practical challenges to adequately support asylum seekers are rooted in policy failures necessary for appropriate resourcing and prioritization of preventative measures. Such deliberate decisions contribute towards state deterrence strategies, eroding both individual well-being and manufacturing a crisis in the systems of support for asylum seekers.