Information technology is already used to support manufacturing operations. In the future its most important role will be in managing the many and varied communications which…
Abstract
Information technology is already used to support manufacturing operations. In the future its most important role will be in managing the many and varied communications which occur throughout the supply chain.
Bureaucratic theory, systems theory and a review of research on innovation, provide a conceptual framework on which seven predictions are posited. The predictions relate to the…
Abstract
Bureaucratic theory, systems theory and a review of research on innovation, provide a conceptual framework on which seven predictions are posited. The predictions relate to the innovative behaviour of a bureaucratic education system throughout a period of twenty years. An innovation is defined as a new structure or process that appeared for the first time in the education system. One hundred and sixty four innovations are identified and classified. The predictions are tested and the implications discussed.
Ching Sing Chai, Huay Lit Woo and Qiyun Wang
The main purpose of this paper is to present how meaningful e‐learning units can be created by using an online tool called Meaningful E‐learning Units (MeLU). The paper also aims…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to present how meaningful e‐learning units can be created by using an online tool called Meaningful E‐learning Units (MeLU). The paper also aims to describe how created e‐learning units can be shared by teachers and students.
Design/methodology/approach
This tool can help to produce e‐learning units that consist of six components: introduction context/scenario, activities, rules and roles, assessment, and concluding activities. A sample of an e‐learning unit called “Creating Tessellations” was created by using the tool and is presented in this paper.
Findings
It is easy to create e‐learning units by using the MeLU tool as it provides a large number of templates for teachers to choose. The tool also allows multimedia elements to be added to or deleted from the unit. Also, this tool enables teachers to share their e‐learning units with others and to customize existing units for their use.
Originality/value
The proposed form of e‐learning lessons could help to advance the integration of ICT‐enabled constructivist learning in schools. The potential to further enhance MeLU's capacity and to further develop it to incorporate Web 3.0 technologies are also discussed.
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Intensifying efforts to utilize behavioral science concepts and knowledge in administrative research and practice in education during the past quarter‐century have produced an…
Abstract
Intensifying efforts to utilize behavioral science concepts and knowledge in administrative research and practice in education during the past quarter‐century have produced an impressive body of literature, largely taxonomic in nature. Much of this literature involves system theory and attempts to identify and classify the various processes by which planned change may be controlled and directed. It thus gives rise to the concept of coherent change strategies and tactics: a concept useful to both the student of organizational change and the administrative practitioner. The author describes four major attempts to identify and classify strategies of organizational change and the tactice that “go with them. In general, these strategies address the problem of how to change organizations, but it is also necessary to know what to change. Leavitt has identified and described four crucial organizational variables which are amenable to administrative control and manipulation: (1) task, (2) structure, (3) people, and (4) technology. These variables are dynamically interrelated but are helpful to the researcher and the administrator in designing and monitoring systemic approaches to organizational change utilizing any strategy which may have been selected.
Judith G. Robinson and Jessica Lipscomb Gehle
Librarians at Eastern Virginia Medical School established a proactive role in research support when the position of Institutional Review Board (IRB) librarian was created in 2001…
Abstract
Purpose
Librarians at Eastern Virginia Medical School established a proactive role in research support when the position of Institutional Review Board (IRB) librarian was created in 2001. Aims to confirm that the IRB librarian assists the school's boards in ensuring human subjects’ protection. Generally, this service is provided in the form of comprehensive searches of medical and other literature and news.
Design/methodology/approach
A program was instigated in order to provide expertise in literature searches to support board members, as they review individual protocols.
Findings
Although serving a relatively small number of users, the program has a major impact on the school's research agenda.
Originality/value
Describes lessons learned, problems encountered, outcomes, and professional gains and lists materials for further reading.
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Nadeera Ranabahu and Farzana Aman Tanima
The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerabilities arising from physical impairments, age, widowhood, forced displacement due to war or natural disasters and sexual…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerabilities arising from physical impairments, age, widowhood, forced displacement due to war or natural disasters and sexual orientation affect women’s microfinance-related entrepreneurial activities and economic empowerment.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a structured literature review and uses preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method. The paper also uses agency, resources and achievement dimensions of empowerment to assess the findings.
Findings
This study reveals that although microfinance services promote women entrepreneurship, they also exacerbate exclusion and further discrimination. Individual-, household-, institutional- and community-level structures shape women’s agencies to access and use loans and conduct entrepreneurial activities; hence, ultimately economic empowerment.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper arises from the conceptual model we synthesised from our review which illustrates how vulnerable women’s agency is shaped by resources and how it affects their achievements in relation to entrepreneurial activities.
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Paolo Boccagni, Luis Eduardo PéRez Murcia and Milena Belloni
Many scholarly disciplines are currently engaged in a turn to affect, paying close attention to emotion, feeling and sensation. The purpose of this paper is to locate affect in…
Abstract
Purpose
Many scholarly disciplines are currently engaged in a turn to affect, paying close attention to emotion, feeling and sensation. The purpose of this paper is to locate affect in relation to masculinity, time and space.
Design/methodology/approach
It suggests that historically, in a range of settings, men have been connected to one another and to women, and these affective linkages tells much about the relational quality and texture of historically experienced masculinities.
Findings
Spatial settings, in turn, facilitate, hinder and modify expressions and experiences of affect and social connectedness. This paper will bring space and time into conversation with affect, using two examples from late nineteenth-century New Zealand.
Originality/value
If masculinities scholars often focus on what divides men from women and men from each other, the paper might think about how affect connects people.
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This chapter outlines complex and conflicting issues related to designing tall buildings. It gathers a vast amount of fragmented criticism and concerns and organizes them around…
Abstract
This chapter outlines complex and conflicting issues related to designing tall buildings. It gathers a vast amount of fragmented criticism and concerns and organizes them around the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. Mapping out the “unsustainable” aspects forms the foundation for addressing them in future research and tall building developments. The chapter engages the reader with a preliminary discussion on potential solutions to the outlined problems. It also balances extensive criticism by highlighting the virtues and advantages of tall buildings. Consequently, this chapter forms a foundation for improving the sustainability of tall buildings whenever and wherever they are constructed.
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Both the history and the historiography of SI show that multiple “different definitions and boundaries” have been applied to the subject of study (Atkinson & Housley, 2003, p. vii…
Abstract
Both the history and the historiography of SI show that multiple “different definitions and boundaries” have been applied to the subject of study (Atkinson & Housley, 2003, p. vii). Yet, despite the commonly agreed-upon understanding of SI's heterogeneity, in practice the institutional and disciplinary core of SI unmistakeably resides in its American heartland. For instance, Reynolds and Herman-Kinney (2003a, 2003b, p. ix) preface their fine Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism by aiming at making it “a fine addition to the sociological literature” (my emphasis). Maines (2001, 2003) himself – the most visible critic of the dissolution of SI – focuses on the growing invisibility of interactionism across American sociological theory and research while Fine (1993) and Sandstrom and Fine (2003, p. 1041) find that the “glorious triumph” of SI is due to its successes in “social psychology, medical sociology, deviance, social problems, collective behavior, cultural studies, media studies, the sociology of emotions, the sociology of art, environmental sociology, race relations, social organization, social movements, and political sociology” – hardly an interdisciplinary outlook.