Jean Harvey, Louis A. Lefebvre and Elizabeth Lefebvre
In common with most service companies, banks today are faced with a myriad demands on their delivery processes made by an increasingly fragmented market. Management theorists and…
Abstract
In common with most service companies, banks today are faced with a myriad demands on their delivery processes made by an increasingly fragmented market. Management theorists and consultants prescribe up‐to‐date technology and service personnel generalists as progenitors of the flexibility required by companies seeking to deliver quality of service. However companies gear up their systems to deal with variable market demands and expectations, penalties of time, finance and quality are inevitable. So, how flexible need a service company be, and what degree of variability need it countenance as acceptable from its customers in today’s marketplace? Can service companies approach such questions in ways similar to those taken in the past by manufacturing companies? Indeed, does “flexibility” mean the same in services as it does in manufacturing? Does it involve the same challenges and, if not, is a radically different model required in order to delineate the concept and challenges of flexibility in services? Attempts to answer such questions conceptually and in terms of information technology’s role in enhancing flexibility of service delivery. Proposes a model by which to integrate the most relevant elements in the service and manufacturing literature, and applies this model to explore four service‐specific dimensions of flexible delivery.
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Tavishi Bhasin, Charity Butcher, Elizabeth Gordon, Maia Hallward and Rebecca LeFebvre
This paper asks how values and beliefs around gender influence social norms regarding masking. Specifically, the paper explores how the gendered meme “Karen” fits into social…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper asks how values and beliefs around gender influence social norms regarding masking. Specifically, the paper explores how the gendered meme “Karen” fits into social media discussions on support for and opposition to the wearing of masks to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze tweets containing the hashtags #Masks4All and #NoMasks over a three-week period, using adjacent hashtag analysis to determine the terms most associated with Karen in the pro and anti-mask communities associated with these hashtags.
Findings
Anti-maskers reference Karen more often than pro-maskers, although she is presented in negative terms with gendered overtones by those on both sides of the masking debate.
Originality/value
The paper highlights how hypermasculinity rhetoric impedes social change that normalizes mask wearing.
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Jane Wilkinson and Annemaree Lloyd-Zantiotis
Recent figures show that half the world’s refugees are children, with young people now representing more than 50 percent of victims of global armed conflict and displaced persons…
Abstract
Recent figures show that half the world’s refugees are children, with young people now representing more than 50 percent of victims of global armed conflict and displaced persons. Increasing numbers of refugee youth are entering their host nations’ compulsory and postcompulsory educational systems having experienced frequent resettlements and disrupted education, which in turn, pose major barriers for educational and future employment. The consequences of these experiences raise pressing equity implications for educators and educational systems. However, the picture is not uniformly bleak. Employing Bourdieu’s thinking tools of habitus, field and capital, Yosso’s concepts of community cultural wealth and photovoice methods, this chapter draws on studies of refugee youth of both genders from diverse ethnic and faith backgrounds, conducted in regional Australia. It examines how everyday spaces for learning, for example, church, faith-based and sporting groups and family can play a crucial role in enabling young people to build powerful forms of social and cultural capital necessary to successfully access and negotiate formal education and training settings. Its findings suggest first that everyday spaces can act as rich sites of informal learning, which young refugee people draw upon to advance their life chances, employability, and social inclusion. Second, they suggest that how one’s gender and “race” intersect may have important implications for how refugee youth access social and cultural capital in these everyday spaces as they navigate between informal learning and formal educational settings.
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Derek Ong, Shirley Chiu, Elizabeth Andrews and Geetha Nadarajan
The global food waste and food scarcity paradox is steadfastly increasing. This study aims to examine the effects of digital nudging as forms of positive and negative…
Abstract
Purpose
The global food waste and food scarcity paradox is steadfastly increasing. This study aims to examine the effects of digital nudging as forms of positive and negative reinforcement to change food waste behavior and found that nudging positive reinforcement modifies this habit.
Design/methodology/approach
A field experiment was conducted on 628 diners randomly split into experiment (n = 412) and control group (n = 216) in two separate dining locations over four weeks. Out of these, 412 diners were randomly subjected to tent cards with positive (n = 228) and negative (n = 184) reinforcement nudging and completed a questionnaire to ascertain if nudging affects their consumption behavior. Consumption waste per unit revenue was calculated from all 628 diners individually to analyze the financial impact between control and experiment groups.
Findings
SEM analysis reveals that positive reinforcement mediates between external motivators (social media and restaurant service) and reduction of food waste behavior. Further analysis also reveals that nudging has a higher three times effect on reducing food waste as compared with no nudging (control).
Social implications
Positive messaging encourages behavior change more effectively as compared to negative ones. Gentle reminders of how everyone can personally be a “warrior” or “hero” in the fight against global food waste increases the likelihood of altruistic motivation in tackling these issues.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates how positive reinforcement in the form of nudges acts as key mediator to support reduction of consumer food waste on site, ultimately helping to reduce financial costs compared to those without nudges.
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This article unveils the similarities of today's space production systems with taxidermy. Giving examples from the transformation of natural environment during the history of…
Abstract
Purpose
This article unveils the similarities of today's space production systems with taxidermy. Giving examples from the transformation of natural environment during the history of Mannahatta (Manhattan), the article discusses the process of metamorphosis of habitats and ecosystems to anthropocentric artificial objects.
Design/methodology/approach
Referencing Lefebvre, urbanization is conceptualized as the production of abstract space that ultimately stifles life; by analogy, space taxidermy.
Findings
Using the analogy of taxidermy and abstract space production processes, the article introduces the necessity and the principles of restoring natural habitats.
Originality/value
Re-writing the urban and architectural history of Manhattan by focusing on four different scenes from its life-span, the article introduces a novel; a new narrative of the history of the city from the perspective of human-nature relations and the various ways habitats were shaped on this island during history.
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This chapter draws on 10 years of ethnographic fieldwork collected in gay bars from three American cities to explore the strategies LGBTQ subcultures deploy to recreate meaningful…
Abstract
This chapter draws on 10 years of ethnographic fieldwork collected in gay bars from three American cities to explore the strategies LGBTQ subcultures deploy to recreate meaningful places within the vestiges of local queer nightlife. As gentrification and social acceptance accelerate the closures of LGBTQ-specific bars and nightclubs worldwide, venues that once served a specific LGBTQ subculture (i.e., leather bars) expand their offerings to incorporate displaced LGBTQ subcultures. Attending to how LGBTQ subcultures might appropriate designated spaces within a gay venue to support community (nightlife complexes), how management and LGBT subcultures temporally circumscribe subcultural practices and traditions to create fleeting, but recurring places (episodic places), and how patrons might disrupt an existing production of place by imposing practices associated with a discrepant LGBTQ subculture(place ruptures), this chapter challenges the notion of “the gay bar” as a singular place catering to a specific subculture. Instead, gay bars increasingly constitute a collection of places within the same space, which may shift depending on its use by patrons occupying the space at any given moment. Beyond the investigation of gay bars, this chapter contributes to the growing sociological literature exploring the multifaceted, unstable, and ephemeral nature of place and place-making in the postmodern city.