Louis K. Falk, Robert W. Jones, Dawn E. Foster and Sharaf Rehman
This study examines the information content of Mexican and U.S. advertisements in a popular men's magazine to determine the relative levels of information content in the…
Abstract
This study examines the information content of Mexican and U.S. advertisements in a popular men's magazine to determine the relative levels of information content in the advertising. The research team examined a year's worth of the international and domestic editions of Playboy magazine, using a 14‐point information cue criteria. The study concluded that Mexican magazine advertisements are more informative than those in the U.S. editions. Additional conclusions indicated that information cues are markedly different with respect to frequency within the advertisements of the two countries.
Iolo Madoc-Jones, Dawn Jones, Odette Parry and Sarah Dubberley
Drawing on the approach of Bourdieu (1977, 1986), and using language as an exemplar, the purpose of this paper is to engage in a “dangerous conversation” to explore how and why…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the approach of Bourdieu (1977, 1986), and using language as an exemplar, the purpose of this paper is to engage in a “dangerous conversation” to explore how and why issues of diversity were mobilised, ignored and leveraged in one particular service context.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research exploring the language choices of 25 service users who had been processed through the criminal Justice System in Wales in the last five years.
Findings
The argument is made that in some service contexts, a habitus obtains that renders reflexivity about diversity issues problematic and predicates against the critical reflection necessary to promote anti-oppressive practice.
Research limitations/implications
Small sample size, not generalisable.
Practical implications
The authors intend the paper to encourage greater reflection on instances when diversity issues are raised and to render simplistic any attempt to invalidate claims of discrimination.
Social implications
Encourage dialogue about claims of discrimination and greater reflection by service providers about the legitimacy of such claims.
Originality/value
Anti-oppressive theorising has, for the most part, constructed minority group members as passive victims within hierarchical power relationships. While acknowledging how power is unequally distributed, the paper challenges hierarchical models which designate minority group members as bereft of power.
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Barney Jordaan and Gawie Cillié
The case is supported with a teaching note, discussion questions and suggested responses to those as well as verbatim transcripts from interviews conducted with managers and…
Abstract
Supplementary materials
The case is supported with a teaching note, discussion questions and suggested responses to those as well as verbatim transcripts from interviews conducted with managers and others for purposes of a research project after the strike had ended. Teaching Notes are available for educators only.
Learning outcomes
The learning outcomes are as follows: students will be able to critique the approach to collective bargaining of both the company and the union in the case and suggest alternative approaches; identify the steps the company could take to both deal with the aftermath of the strike and develop preventive measures for the future; and advise the company on a series of questions it needs advice on.
Case overview/synopsis
A violent strike erupted after failed wage negotiations. It laid bare deep divisions between African and non-African employees and between permanent employees and those appointed as temporary employees only. It also revealed the mindsets of people on both sides of the conflict, as well as several errors made by management in the manner in which they viewed the role of the union and failed to build strong relations with employees on the shop floor.
Complexity academic level
The case is suitable for students at honours or masters level in conflict studies, dispute resolution, employment relations, human resource management and negotiation.
Subject code
CSS 6: Human resource management.
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Dawn Onishenko and Lea Caragata
Following the landmark 2003 Ontario Court of Appeal decision legalizing same‐sex marriage, some same‐sex couples sought to formalize their unions through legal marriage. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Following the landmark 2003 Ontario Court of Appeal decision legalizing same‐sex marriage, some same‐sex couples sought to formalize their unions through legal marriage. The purpose of this paper is to explore the personal and political reflections of recently married same‐sex couples on the meaning of their marriages for themselves, their partners, their community as well as the implications for progressive social change in the broader social world.
Design/methodology/approach
An ethnographic approach was employed to semi‐structured in‐depth qualitative interviews with six lesbian and gay couples.
Findings
An emerging thesis is that, while seeking access to a most conventional and conformist institution, same‐sex couples inadvertently become “cutting edge” couples as they make public their declarations of love and commitment and model new and challenging notions of marriage.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides a snapshot of a small number of interviews that took place approximately 11 months after the Ontario Court of Appeal decision.
Practical implications
Law should take into account the importance of social and legal recognition of marriage for all. The heteronormativity of marriage is thus challenged from within, to make these types of marriages truly cutting edge.
Originality/value
The paper provides evidence of the personal and political reflections of people who had the choice to get married and did, at a time when this was seen as really cutting edge. Few personal accounts exist which provide a picture of the continued importance of marriage to human beings.
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Ralph Adler, Mansi Mansi and Rakesh Pandey
This paper provides a thematic analysis of an IUCN Red-Listed bird, the houbara bustard, which Pakistan uses as a fungible resource to appease its wealthy Arab benefactors.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper provides a thematic analysis of an IUCN Red-Listed bird, the houbara bustard, which Pakistan uses as a fungible resource to appease its wealthy Arab benefactors.
Design/methodology/approach
Thematic analysis of relevant media reports and government ministry and NGO websites comprise the study's data. Media reports were located using Dow Jones' Factiva database.
Findings
Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues wealthy Arabs special permits for hunting the houbara bustard as a “soft” foreign diplomacy strategy aimed at propping up the country's fragile economy. Although illegal under international and Pakistan's own wildlife laws, resource dependence theory helps explain how various country-specific issues (e.g. dysfunctional political and judicial systems) enable Pakistan's unlawful exchange of hunting permits for Arab oil and short-term financing. Surrogate accountability and agencement are examined as two means for arresting the bird's trajectory toward extinction.
Research limitations/implications
Media reports comprise the primary data. Pakistani government officials were approached for interviews, but failed to reply. Although unfortunate, the pervasive corruption and mistrust that characterise Pakistan's culture would have likely tainted the responses. For this reason, media reports were always the primary data sought.
Originality/value
The present study extends prior literature by exploring how country context can subvert the transferability of social and political approaches used in developed countries to address environmental accounting issues and challenges. As this study shows, a developing country's economic vulnerability, combined with its dysfunctional political systems, impotent judiciary and feckless regulatory mechanisms, can undermine legislation meant to protect the country's natural environment, in general, and a threatened bird's existence, in particular.
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Jill Frances Atkins, Federica Doni, Karen McBride and Christopher Napier
This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to broaden the agenda for environmental and ecological accounting research across several dimensions, extending the form of accounting in this field by encouraging research into its historical roots and developing a definition of accounting that can address the severe environmental and ecological challenges of the 21st century.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors explored environmental and ecological accounts from the dawn of human consciousness across a wide variety of media and in a broad range of forms. This theoretical approach reacts to the cold capitalist commodification of nature inherent in much environmental accounting practice, which documents, values and records usage of natural capital with little attempt to address depletion and loss.
Findings
By analysing the earliest ecological and environmental “accounts” recorded by humans at the dawn of human consciousness, and considering a wide array of subsequent accounts, the authors demonstrate that rather than being a secondary, relatively recent development emerging from financial accounting and reporting, environmental and ecological accounting predated financial accounting by tens of thousands of years. This research also provides a wealth of perspectives on diversity, not only in forms of account but also in the diversity of accountants, as well as the broadness of the stakeholders to whom and to which the accounts are rendered.
Research limitations/implications
The paper can be placed at the intersection of accounting history, the alternative, interdisciplinary and critical accounts literature, and environmental and ecological accounting research.
Practical implications
Practically, the authors can draw ideas and inspiration from the historical forms and content of ecological and environmental account that can inform new forms of and approaches to accounting.
Social implications
There are social implications including the diversity of accounts and accountants derived from studying historical ecological and environmental accounts from the dawn of human consciousness especially in the broadening out of the authors' understanding of the origins and cultural roots of accounting.
Originality/value
This study concludes with a new definition of accounting, fit for purpose in the 21st century, that integrates ecological, environmental concerns and is emancipatory, aiming to restore nature, revive biodiversity, conserve species and enhance ecosystems.
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This study compares filmic and televisual representations of fictional black presidents to white Americans’ reactions to the advent of the United States’s first African American…
Abstract
Purpose
This study compares filmic and televisual representations of fictional black presidents to white Americans’ reactions to the advent of the United States’s first African American president. My main goal is to determine if there is convergence between these mediated representations and whites’ real-world representations of Barack Obama. I then weigh the evidence for media pundits’ speculations that Obama owes his election to positive portrayals of these fictional heads of state.
Methodology/approach
The film and television analyses examine each black president’s social network, personality, character traits, preparation for office, and leadership ability. I then compare the ideological messages conveyed through these portrayals to the messages implicated in white Americans’ discursive and pictorial representations of Barack Obama.
Findings
Both filmic and televisual narratives and public discourses and images construct and portray black presidents with stereotypical character traits and abilities. These representations are overwhelmingly negative and provide no support for the argument that there is a cause–effect relationship between filmic and televisual black presidents and Obama’s election victory.
Research implications
Neither reel nor real-life black presidents can elude the representational quagmire that distorts African Americans’ abilities and diversity. Discourses, iconography, narratives, and other representations that define black presidents through negative tropes imply that blacks are incapable of effective leadership. These hegemonic representations seek to delegitimize black presidents and symbolically return them to subordinate statuses.
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Michel Leseure, Dawn Robins, Graham Wall and Dylan Jones
Offshore renewable energy technologies provide many new opportunities for coastal regions around the world, and although the energy policy literature has documented the success…
Abstract
Purpose
Offshore renewable energy technologies provide many new opportunities for coastal regions around the world, and although the energy policy literature has documented the success stories of many “first mover” regions, there is little guidance for “second mover” or “follower” regions. This paper aims to investigate the strategic challenges faced by coastal regions in the Channel area that are not first movers.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use a multiple case study approach to analyse the behaviour of regional stakeholders when planning and assessing their participation in the renewable energy sector.
Findings
The paper reveals the tendency of regional planners to idealise investments in renewable energy. The negative consequences of idealisation are inadequate strategic visions.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are only relevant in the context of the regions that are part of the case study.
Practical implications
The paper illustrates how idealisation of technology or strategy is created and how it impacts strategic decision-making. It also discusses how to address idealisation.
Social implications
Although much of the energy policy literature discusses the challenge of social acceptance, this paper documents an opposite phenomenon, idealisation. There is a need in the energy sector to find a middle ground between these two extremes.
Originality/value
The paper provides evidence and a theoretical analysis of a decision-making bias, idealisation, which is not discussed in the literature.
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Dawn Y. Matthews and Tamara Bertrand Jones
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have served as the foundation of Black education in the United States and have been instrumental in the social and economic…
Abstract
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have served as the foundation of Black education in the United States and have been instrumental in the social and economic advances of the Black community since the Civil War. Students enrolled in and graduating from HBCUs develop and maintain a strong racial identity, a positive self-image, feel connected to others, and ultimately give back to their communities. HBCU students and alumni often challenge normative leadership paradigms to resist inequity and ultimately create social change. Unfortunately, HBCUs are missing from the leadership education conversations despite their historical contributions in teaching leadership and producing leaders. As such, the influence of Black colleges in the areas of social justice, leadership, and leadership development should be carefully examined by leadership educators and researchers. Using the Culturally Responsive Leadership Learning Model (Bertrand Jones, Guthrie, & Osteen, 2016), we consider the ways that HBCUs facilitate the development of students' leadership identity, capacity, and efficacy within the institutional contexts of (1) historical legacy of inclusion/exclusion, (2) compositional diversity, (3) psychological climate, (4) behavioral climate, and (5) organizational/structural aspects. Providing examples of leadership education programs, practices, and policies from HBCUs, we will explore how HBCUs develop Black students' leadership identity, capacity, and efficacy to generate our country's most capable leaders for social justice.
The Pashtun Jirga is a “tribal” conflict resolution method that has survived for centuries, with the Pashtuns, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, still practicing it in rural…
Abstract
The Pashtun Jirga is a “tribal” conflict resolution method that has survived for centuries, with the Pashtuns, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, still practicing it in rural communities. The chapter argues how the introduction and persistence of the Frontier Crimes Regulations, 1901, a colonial-era regulation, has undermined not only the traditional authority of the tribal elders but also diminished the importance of the Jirga. However, the tribal Pashtuns, through Jirga and Jirga-based Lashkars (tribal militias), have also occasionally supported the Pakistani military's actions against various militant groups operating in the Pashtun tribal areas, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The chapter argues why, even with its positives, the Jirga still possess various loopholes that result in various gender rights violations in the Pashtun society. Finally, the chapter also discusses how recent developments in the Pashtun tribal areas, leading to their merger with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, along with the introduction of the country's judiciary present a challenge for the survival of the Jirga as a conflict resolution tool in the tribal areas. Moreover, the chapter also argues why the young Pashtuns from the tribal region are against the male-dominated nature of Jirga and want it to be replaced with modern judicial structures, presenting a challenge to the survival of Jirga in Pakistan.